


Futility

by Yumiia



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Amnesia, Angst and Romance, Dark, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Ghouls, Minor Character Death, Reader-Insert, Slow Build, Slow Romance, Tragic Romance, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2019-08-22 04:52:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16591163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yumiia/pseuds/Yumiia
Summary: [Originally a work I had posted on different fanfiction websites, so you might have seen this story by "Resistance is Futile". I personally don't like the websites I had posted it on so I've now moved the fanfic over here. This is also the updated version with slight plot tweaks to fit with the events and information from Tokyo Ghoul RE.]Your black investigator suit was completely torn and soaked in your own red blood. The white coat which you've inherited from Arima was so badly ripped it barely showed any resemblance to its former glory. Time seemed to freeze as you laid there on the cold hard ground.It's been such a long day...





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I've created a few OCs to help drive the plot but the main focus will be on canon characters in tokyo ghoul.

**Prologue**

  
"We need reinforcements-" a static voice called over your two-way radio. It had clearly being directed towards the headquarters of the CCG base back in Ward One. The voice that had crackled through your black radio earpiece was suddenly cut off, as muffled screams cried out and pierced the quiet atmosphere. The sound of tearing flesh and animalistic growls followed along shortly after. Scarlet red blood splattered all over the faded dull gray alley walls. The setting sun dyed the clouds a reddish color, making it seem like even the sky was affected by these monsters' ravenous attack. There's no doubt about it, this ambush was set up by ghouls.  
  
Ghouls are monsters that slaughter mankind, well, that was at least what you've been taught throughout your whole life. They killed humans thoughtlessly and hunted them as prey. Even though they can blend into human society, they could never completely hid their monstrous instincts. When hungry, ghouls’ irises would turn red and the sclera would turn black with red veins, this process is called 'kakugan'. This can also be triggered when the ghoul becomes excited or when they use their kagune. Each ghoul would have a unique 'kagune'. Kagunes are like an extra limb ghouls have in which they can use as a weapon. Kagunes are broken down and separated in to four basic groups by the CCG, Rinkaku (Shining Scales), Ukaku (Shining Feather), Koukaku (Shining Shell), and Bikaku (Shining Tail). Each type of kagune are retracted from a different area from the body. Rinkaku are located in the lower back area, Ukaku are located in the general shoulder blade area, Koukaku are located right in the area under the shoulder blades, and Bikaku are located around the tailbone area. There are also a form of strengths and weaknesses between the different kagunes, almost like a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Rinkaku trumps Koukaku, while Koukaku trumps Ukaku, Ukaku trumps Bikaku, and Bikaku trumps Rinkaku. There are also rankings for how dangerous a ghoul is, SSS, SS, S, A, B, C, 'SSS' being the most dangerous and 'C' being the weakest.  
Of course mankind have come up with a way to counter these dangerous monstrosities. They've created an organization called the Commission of Counter Ghoul, CCG. Members of the CCG are called ghoul investigators, or more commonly referred by the public as 'doves'. Like most organizations, there are rankings for each investigator. These split off into two general groups, Senior Investigators and Junior Investigators. Within the Senior Investigators rankings there are three titles, Special Investigators, Associate Special Investigators, and First Rank. Special Investigators are the highest and barely any have the rank, and First Rank is the lowest rankings in the Senior Investigators. Next, the Junior Investigators also have three titles, Rank One, Rank Two, and Rank Three. Rank One is the highest and Rank Three is the lowest, it’s usually the rank many investigators start their career with unless they graduated from the Ghoul Investigator Training Academy. In fact, you yourself had graduated from the Ghoul Investigator Training Academy and immediately got hired as Junior Investigator with a title of Rank Two. Every student who graduated from the Academy were immediately hired as Junior Investigator with a title of Rank Two. Each investigator is equipped with a weapon to fight ghouls with, they're called 'quinques'. Quinques are directly made from kagune of a ghoul. Yes, whenever an investigator kills a ghoul, the kagune from the ghoul's back is removed and used for someone's quinque. Though the weapon part of the quinque is make from kagunes, the base that holds it all together is called a quinque steel. You of course had your own quinque to use to fight off ghouls, yours is used from a deceased A ranked ghoul's Rinkaku. It was colored with brilliant shades blue and green and molded into a long and thin throned blade. Nearly every investigator wore an armored outfit during ghoul attacks, but during undercover ghoul searches, most would just wear normal suit and the occasional white coat. You usually wore a normal business dress, that had a suit like top and a skirt that cut off right below your knees. The upper suit part had low fancy v-cut. You always wore a neatly ironed white collared undershirt to cover up the unnecessary areas that the lowly cut neck line showed. You also wore a white cloak which was similar to the one Arima wore all the time, and yes, Arima was the one who gave that to you. You never wore anything too revealing, you never felt the need to do so anyways. You were already in a happy relationship with the quote 'undefeated' ghoul investigator, and of course you were referring to Arima...  
  
Everything had been going so well today, you weren't even sure when it all turned wrong. As your body laid back against the cold cement ground, you thought about how stupid you were to fall into this pathetic trap. You've never felt so useless in your whole entire life. Arima would be so ashamed right now, you would have never heard the end of his lecturing. That is, if you even made it out alive. Your full consciousness was not completely registered, causing you to feel lightheaded. The corners of your vision were blurred, and your fingers felt numb. You were so cold. The only item you could have possibly defended yourself with, your quinque, in this situation had been long knocked out of your hand. It had skittered off somewhere to the side, even if you retrieved your quinque again, you couldn't possibly defeat all these ghouls. Arima, where was he? The blood in the gaping gash that was running along your side had already turned cold. Your black investigator suit was completely torn and soaked in your own red blood. The white coat which you've inherited from Arima was so badly torn it barely showed any resemblance to its former glory. Time seemed to freeze as you continued to lay there on the cold hard ground. A familiar head covered in bleach white locks dressed in a corresponding white cloak slowly approach you. _That's Arima right..?_ You felt yourself instinctively reach out and grab at the looming figure.  
  
"Arima..?" you choked out in a small whisper. Your hand lingered in the air for a bit, expecting the white haired man to reach out and help you. Yet nothing seemed to happen and all you received from the man was a light sigh.  
  
"Take her back to the base..."  
  
That was definitely not Arima. This voice was much more blunt and monotone than the usual lighthearted and calm tone of Arima's voice. As you looked more closely, the glint of a red metal mask caught the light of the waning sun. Realization hit you as you immediately recalled the only ghoul you knew of with a red metal mask. The person who stood before you was none other than one of the leaders of the highly dangerous Aogiri Tree, Tatara, an SS ranking ghoul. You felt yourself physically give up, there was no way you could possibly beat an SS rank, let alone beat an S rank by yourself. Things just seemed to get worse and worse for you by the moment, huh? You let out a defeated sigh as you felt someone tall pick you up like a rag doll. The long slender hand of your captor pressed a white cloth over your mouth and nose. You immediately began to feel dizzy and more lightheaded than you were already. You felt your heavy eyelids droop, it didn't take long for the drugs to push onward and knock the daylight out of you.  
  
_It's been such a long day..._  
  
*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･*･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*  
  
**Two Days Ago...**  
  
Your cell phone that was currently stored in your coat pocket when it let out a tuneful ring. You let out a soft sigh and a white-ish cloud formed in the air as you exhaled. Fall was nearing its end and Winter was coming to take its place. This made you unusually sad as you thought about it. The pretty orange-yellow leaves would fall down and turn brown, all shriveled up and dead. A dreadful image of memory long thought forgotten flashed across your mind. You forced yourself to push that thought aside as you attempted to replace it with another happier memory. Your phone let out another ring, indicating someone was trying to contact you. You let out another long sigh as you dug your free hand into you coat pocket, as the other was occupied in holding your suitcase which held your quinque. Fishing the phone out you read,  
  
_-Come back soon.-_  
  
_-Are you alright?-_  
  
The ID in which sent you these two short messages read, Arima. The frown that had found its way onto your face was now replaced with a small smile; this made your mood change dramatically. Even though you and Arima have been in a relationship for quite some time, Arima had always liked to keep the relationship you two shared a secret and hidden for public eye. The two of you just looked like a pair of old friends who've built a deep friendship to everyone else, instead of couple like you’d wish it to be. Even though you had completely different view on how your relationship should be like, you completely understood where Arima was coming from. If anyone were to find out you two were together, especially ghouls, who knows what people might do to use this against him. He would constantly remind you that he wouldn't push you to have this relationship and was perfectly fine if you wished to part ways. You actually found this rather cute for a confined man like him.  
With a teasing smile playing at your lips you slid your finger across the screen of your phone. The phone let out a clicking sound as it unlocked. You've never bothered to ever place a passcode on your phone because you never used this device unless you needed to contact someone. If someone seriously wanted your phone so badly, they must have really wanted someone's contact information from your phone. Pressing on the texting application, you went on to reply to Arima's concerns,  
  
_-Oh I'm fine. Just running a little late with some errands, be home soon. <3-_  
  
The smile widened as you looked at the small heart you sent to Arima. You were sure he was going have a 'talk' with you about even keeping things you send over text more secretive about the relationship you two hold. You've always felt like Arima was taking far too many precautions, he just needed to let you loose sometimes. He couldn't just lock you up in cage all the time having twenty-four hour surveillance on you. You stuffed your phone back into your pocket and continued to walk down the empty sidewalk with the setting sun shining behind you. Your white coat sprawled out behind you as the evening breeze blew against your already chilled body. Night was approaching and the danger of walking outside alone in a neighborhood rumored to be filled with ghouls was a bad idea. Of course, for a person without any training of any sort this would be a horrible life altering decision, but for you it just seemed like an everyday routine. Everyday you were constantly barging yourself into ghoul infested Wards to try on eliminate them. Plus, according to the CCG this neighborhood was filled with B and C ranked ghouls. The B ranked might be a little more of a challenge, but the C ranked wouldn't be an issue. You continued to walk on humming a nameless tune, completely unaware of the pair of eyes watching you from a distance.

* * *

The Bin Brothers sat perched atop a building not too far away from your shrinking figure off in the distance. Both brothers wore purple-ish blue cloaks with hoods that hung low over their faces. Even though the hood already would have shaded many of their features, they both wore white masks with red designs underneath. Though both masks were similar in color, they both had a completely different design. One brother's mask was cut into fourths and the lines swerved in a way to look like it represented some sort of swirl. While the other had a small square design in the upper left corner and 'P' shaped marking in the center. The cool evening breeze ruffled at their blue-ish purple cloaks as they waited there crouching, thinking of what they should do to you.

The soft breeze also happened blown your scent all the way back to their sensitive noses. Though not visible to the eye, both crinkled their noses in disgust as they breathed in a waft of your scent. Your originally bland scent was completely mixed in with the smell of him. Arima's ghoul blood tinted smell rubbed off completely against yours. Arima's scent stood out like the full moon in the dark night sky while yours was like a needle in a haystack. The reason being is because Arima has been killing ghouls for the longest time, the hint of a ghoul scent was permanently branded to him. While you just smelled like every other human, you were just normal, in fact too normal. Your scent was so bland that even if someone just shook your hand for a greeting, their scent would be marred onto you for a least a day. Though for having such a bland smell like that would be extremely helpful if you never made any human contact at all, but that would be nearly impossible.  
  
"She smells like him." the younger one of the brothers spat. Every inch of his voice was laced with hatred. The stupid damned investigator has killed so many of their comrades, he also posed as a great threat against the Aogiri Tree. This might be one of the only chances in which they might have something to use against the 'undefeated' ghoul investigator. Yet their orders told them not to act but only observe.  
  
The brothers glanced at each other and knew exactly what the other was thinking. Without needing an extra effort to communicate with each other, the two brothers launched themselves off the building like two hunting eagles locking onto their prey. Their purple-ish blue cloak became tousled as the wind rushed against their cloaked bodies and masked faces. Both knew exactly were they were going to take this information, back to Ward Eleven, where the Aogiri Tree base was located.  
  
*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･*･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*  
  
Tatara followed behind Eto closely as she walked around cheerfully without a single care in the world. She balanced herself on the edge of building in which they stood a top. Tatara wore his own purple-ish blue cloak over his long white jacket, his arms hung lazily by his sides as he stared at Eto, keeping an eye on her. Eto was dressed in her normal dark pink cloak with a flower print scarf wrapped around her neck. Her body was completely covered in bandages from head to toe. Her eyes looked like simple black holes with all the bandages around her. Eto hummed a cheerful tune as she spread her arms out to keep herself balanced. Tatara just thoughtlessly went along with her as she went around to have "fun". His loyalty towards the Aogiri Tree and his bond with Eto were both highly important to him. He would never allow the Aogiri Tree to fall like the way Chi She Lian did. No way in hell would he allow the CCG to once again destroy his residence. He gritted his teeth slightly underneath his red metal mask; thinking back to the time he spent back in China with the Chi She Lian brought back some unnecessary memories. The small flashbacks of his childhood with Fei and Yan messed at his usual calm composure. He began to think about the very investigator who brought this downfall upon him. Without even thinking, his hands were balled into tight fists and his eyes began shift and change into its kakugan form.  
  
"Oh dear Tatara, is something upsetting you?" Eto asked innocently as she spun around to look back at him. Her arms were folded behind her as she walked backwards on the ledge of the building. Her eyes held an intensive stare against his. The sections of his sclera in which had already turned black retraced itself and returned to it's normal white color. Tatara let out a long sigh before opening his mouth to answer her question, he would have continue before two blue blurs scaled up the building they were on top.  
  
Both launched off into the air above them, Tatara immediately recognized who the pair were. The Bin Brothers. As the two landed they lowered themselves so they were in a kneeling position before Eto and him. The one with a 'P' shape on his mask spoke first,  
  
"Sir, we have discovered female human who seems to have Arima's scent mixed in with hers. From the looks of it, his scent is still pretty fresh on her." he informed with his head hung low as the two kneeled before him. Eto turned to look at Tatara for his opinion, for once the girl finally had seriousness in her.  
  
"It is a good chance to strike against the CCG's best dove and wounding him emotionally." Eto gaze wandered from Tatara as she pondered the thought and she tapped her chin thoughtfully with a bandaged finger. The two knew that Arima played a bigger role than what he gave off to Aogiri Tree, but no one could know that he did. She turned to look back at Tatara, "Well, what do you think?"  
  
"First off, we don't know if the information is truly valid or not. Second, if the information you hold is true, then I believe we should use her to trade with the CCG for a ghoul in their prisons. With her being somewhat important to Arima, we may have more leverage in getting what we want." Tatara stated in a rather monotone voice, his once angered and disoriented expression was completely wiped off his face. In fact, now it seemed like his face was in complete in lack of any emotion. He had to come up with something that was decently convincing without raising suspicions within the ranks. In all honestly they might just have to capture the woman the brother’s spoke about and forage a lie that the negotiations didn’t work out. Plus there were plenty of uses for her afterwards to have the whole ordeal blow over.  
  
The Bin Brothers nodded their heads in unison as the absorbed in every detail Tatara said, Eto giggled as she hopped down from the ledge she stood on.  
  
"Then we’ll AMBUSH her! It'll be so funny!" Eto exclaimed as she bent over laughing at her own twisted idea, "We'll torture her just like those humans do to us, maybe even kill her." the bandaged girl's laugh progressively got louder and more crazed. Though it sounded like the girl was just joking, Tatara elaborated on her idea.  
  
"We could send a decoy of weaker ghouls loose in an area, and have the CCG send out a few divisions to got after them. We'll have the Bin Brother's, because they already know her scent, track down her division." Tatara began, his crimson red eyes were locked onto the two ghoul brothers as they continued to kneel in front of the two head associates of the Aogiri Tree. He then went on to look at Eto as he continued, "Pin point her location and have the ghouls attack her division and lure them in. We'll then have a few of the more powerful ghouls ones like Noro and Ayato wait and finally ambush her. Now, I want the two of you to go inform everyone about this plan and set it up to action as quick as possible."  
  
No one objected after he finished his quick explanation. The plan was quick and easy, a simple way to get this over with. It would probably raise a momentary public crisis, but it was enough to show the members that they were still fighting the CCG during these long months of silence. The Bin Brothers nodded once more before the got up from their kneeling position and hurried off to inform the others who were going to be involved in the plan.  
Eto glanced at Tatara before looking away to stare off in the general direction the two ghouls ran off to. She kicked at the small pebbles of debris as she walked around aimlessly once again. Tatara went along to follow closely after her, almost acting like some sort of bodyguard. Even though it gave the impression of Eto being much weaker and couldn’t defend for herself, it was actually quite the opposite. Eto was in fact much stronger and placed as an SSS ranked ghoul for the CCG, one of the only two currently SSS ranked ghouls in Japan.  
Eto suddenly spun around, but that didn't seem to faze Tatara one little bit. His body remained motionless as he waited for Eto to move again, he seemed to follow Eto around like a loyal dog. He followed all orders Eto would give him. Though it may sound a little sickening to make Tatara seem like he had no free will, but it’s just how this complex bond these two shared worked. Eto tapped her foot lightly against the cement before finally speaking,  
  
"I want you to go along with them." Eto stated bluntly. Tatara's empty expression did not weaver, his weight simply shifted to his left foot as he stared at Eto blankly. But this clearly showed how he would rather not take part in the capture of a human. There was a long moment between two of the leaders of the Aogiri Tree. He knew she probably wanted him to go so no one did anything over the top and violate plans that Arima had with them. Though he knew Noro could simply take care of such matters, hence why he had him go. No one seemed to cave in from their own perspectives for a long moment. Eventually Tatara's red orbs narrowed before he let out a long sigh, defeated.  
  
"Alright, I shall go just this once." Tatara he informed the smaller ghoul. He neared the edge of the building before jumping down, his purple-ish blue cloak flowing behind him.

* * *

An unsuspected called crackled through your ear piece, "An unexpectedly large influx of C Ranked ghouls have been spotted in the eastern section of the twentieth ward. All look to be apart of the Aogiri Tree, available Junior Investigators Rank Two and Three in the Twentieth Ward please report to the situation immediately." The voice was deep and gruff as it spoke through the radio.

You were actually currently on your way to local coffee shop of a small neighborhood that was located in Twentieth Ward. In fact, you were only a few blocks from it. It was called something like "Anteiku", you weren't one hundred percent sure on exactly what the name was. You've only heard about it from a few locals that say that the small cafe had the best coffee out of the many shops in Tokyo.  
Your expression darkened when the radio call finished, the ghouls just had to time it right when you were about to have your lunch break. You let out an exasperated sigh as you lolled your head back in annoyance. Today was actually the one day out of each month that you would have a proper lunch break. Usually you would just grab something from a nearby market and eat it as you worked.  
  
"At least I'm already near where I'm supposed to be..." you muttered quietly, attempting to look at the optimistic side of things. Readying the suitcase in which held your quinque, you darted off to the alley ways, where most suspecting ghouls usually are.  
  
"Excuse me." a voice called out from behind you, you were slightly caught off guard by the sudden use of your name. You stopped and suddenly spun around to find Yasahiro Ike, your close friend in which you known since you were a child and attended the Ghoul Investigator Training Academy with. Though you and Yasahiro have known each other since you were kids, you both to preferred keep your respects for one another. Yasahiro stood a outstanding 197 cm (6' 5") off the ground while you only stood an average 164 cm (5' 5"). He still had his white rectangular framed glasses which he's always had since childhood. His hair was a dirty blond color with a brownish tint at the roots and the tips. It was of medium length and slightly spiked out around the ends. His eyes were a light hazel with brown and gold flakes splattering throughout them. His shoulders were broad while his torso was slim, he wore the normal CCG armored uniform in which investigators wore when there was an assigned mission. From the looks of it, Yasahiro must have came directly from a smaller CCG headquarters located in the Twentieth Ward.  
  
"Ike-sama! Were you called here too? But I thought you were promoted to a First rank!?" you asked completely startled. Yasahiro had progressed through the Academy and through the Junior investigator ranks with ease. People liked to consider Yasahiro the third investigator prodigy next to Arima and Juuzou. Everyone looked up to the three of them, including yourself.  
  
Yasahiro shrugged before letting out a small sigh as his answer. Yasahiro was never a man to talk much, so this always caused him to have this mysterious aurora shrouded around him. Ever since Yasahiro was a kid, he had lost his family from ghouls. When he was younger, in late grade school when he first moved into your neighborhood, he informed everyone of his story. Instead of saying his name or "please take care of me" like most students did, he simply said "My family was killed by ghouls... I watched them get eaten alive, as I hid in a closet with hole through my stomach." his words shocked everyone, you remembered the whole room was silent by the time he was finished with his 'introduction'. His hazel eyes held a cold stoic gaze he had back then as a child, he looked off deep into the alley way.  
A few CCG foot soldiers stood behind him along with one or two Rank Three investigators tagging along. All of them had a serious expression plastered on their faces, making them look like they were completely absorbed into this job.  
  
"Sorry for Ike-sama's abrupt appearance, he had insisted that he be allowed to come on this expedition with us." one of the foot soldiers informed you as they gave you a bow in respect.  
  
"No I understand, Ike-sama and I are very close. He must have known I was in the Twentieth Ward today, that's probably why he insisted he come too." you informed the soldier as Yasahiro's whole body jerked as he gritted his teeth with a faint blush brushing over his cheeks. You sent over a playful grin as he just glared at you, even though Yasahiro was completely serious about everything and never talked much, he could get easily flustered.  
  
"Head out." Yasahiro order with an annoyed tone. He allowed the others to run head of him so he was standing in the back with you. He glared down at you as you continued to give him your innocent smile you always had as a kid. He lifted his hand that didn't hold his suit case that held quinque over to your head. You thought he was going to pet your hair like he always did back in school, but his fingers changed course and flicked you right in the center of the forehead. "Baka..." he whispered to you as he continued to glare.  
  
You just continued to smile at him as he rolled his eyes. Yasahiro hadn't flicked you too hard, he wouldn't ever want to harm you. "Well, I think we should go. We can't dwell in the past far too long, or else we're going to end up talking about the story when you pissed your pants in middle school!" you shouted before darting off after the other troops.  
  
You saw his glare darken, but his cheeks once again were tinted pink. He gritted his teeth and ran after you. Muttering about you and your embarrassing moments in school.  
  
The two of you caught up with the troops, already engaged in a fight with the C ranked ghouls. The ghouls were showing a slight advantage at this point with slightly higher skill than the soldiers, but now that you and Yasahiro were here, the tables were sure to turn.  
You immediately pulled out your quinque, allowing the long blue green blade bubble up and form. Once solidified, you charged at the C ranked ghouls with all your might. Disgusting monsters. Yasahiro finally allowed his quinque to be shown, allowing the weapon to swell up over left his arm and reveal an armored coating over his whole arm up till his shoulder. It them proceeded to reach up a little higher cover up the lower left half of his face. His left hand was also covered by the quinque as armor over his fingers were prolonged and sharpened into deadly points, Yasahiro was left handed. The fact he was so, caused him to win so many battles against ghouls. All of them expect him to be awful at fighting because his weapon is on his left arm while he’s right handed.  
You brought your long quinque blade down on an attacking ghoul. The ghoul, not suspecting such speed from you, was quickly cut down with one slash. The blade ran right across the ghoul's chest as it’s blood splattered everywhere, blood spewed out of the mouth of the ghoul as it took in it's last few breaths. You were already panting slightly from all the running and for killing that one ghoul. Yasahiro on the other had wasn't. He raked through the ghouls with ease and incredible speed, none of the C rank ghouls even stood a chance against him. With the tides turning the ghoul's attacks became messy and the soldier's performance only improved, quickly disposing of remaining few ghouls.  
Throughout the whole battle, you could only give yourself credit of killing three of ghouls in the small group while Yasahiro slaughtered countless. You watched Yasahiro flick off all the blood on his armored arm in one swift motion. You sent a cheerful smile in his direction before you began to walk towards him. Yasahiro had one of his rare smiles plastered on his face, today was your lucky day. If Yasahiro was smiling-  
  
Something hit your side like a sack of rocks.  
  
Your body was completely thrown off balance as you plummeted towards the ground. Your quinque slipped from your grip and fell to the floor, the moment it touched the ground, it was quickly swept away by a blue tail like appendage. _A Bikaku! There were more ghouls?_ Yasahiro face quickly twisted into a morbid frown, his teeth became gridded as he attempted to lunge at whatever attacked you. A searing hot pain shot throughout you whole body, it felt like a million red hot needles had stabbed themselves all into your side. Your eyes widened to their fullest extent as you saw the gash that was now embedded into your side. Your warm crimson red blood gushed from the newly open wound, splattering on the the already bloodstained ground with more red.

* * *

One of the Bin Brother's had launched themselves at the only female in the group of doves, signaling the ambush to start. The ghoul managed to slice open the side of the female investigator with his Bikaku and knocked away her quinque. The person that seemed to be the female's friend, twisted with anger and lunged himself at the Bin Brother. A group consisting of A and B rank ghouls dropped themselves down from the buildings and surrounded the group of CCG members. Ayato, Noro, and Kaneki dropped themselves down to the ground right after the others landed. Tatara, though he was apart of the ambush, kept himself away from the commotion and observed from above.  
The tall dirty blond haired human readied his armored arm quinque about to launch himself at the Bin Brother before Kaneki stomped down on the investigator's calf. A loud cracking sound rung out through the whole alley. The man didn't even scream as the bone in his leg was snapped in half by the false one-eyed ghoul, he only glared at the female dove's attacker. His eyes didn't even falter from the Bin Brother, it made it seem like he almost wanted to throw him to deepest depths of hell and watch him get burned alive. The blonde fell down to his knees. His hands outstretched forward for support as he panted, willing away the pain. Kaneki then proceeded to to break the other bone in the other calf. All the investigators watched in an expression of horror and shock as their superior fell against the S ranked ghouls. With pause of doubt and their hopes dropping, the other lower ranked ghouls attacked. They ripped through the humans as if their flesh was made of paper. The sound of tearing flesh and cries of pain and terror echoed throughout evening. One of the humans had tried to call back to the main CCG base back in Ward One but was ultimately unsuccessful. Now it was only the blonde haired man and the (h/c) woman. They needed the woman, not the man.  
Ayato approached the fallen man that was brought down by Kaneki. Disgust and hatred burned in his eyes. The man held his composure and held an equally hateful stare back. The history the two held seemed to be mutual, the other's species had murdered their family. He caught a glimpse of bloodied body, and the ever enlarging sea of red around you. He glared at the dark blue haired ghoul in front on him, his anger was starting to go over the rim. He tried to muster enough strength to dash over to you pick you up and escape, Yasahiro didn't dare want to lose another person close to him. His moral was almost the exact same as Tatara's, wishing to keep the one you cared for safe. The only difference was, Tatara was strong and Yasahiro was week. He couldn't even protect you when a group of stronger ghouls attacked, no, he couldn't even defend himself against them how could he have save you?  
  
"So this is the quote 'third' investigator prodigy, what a load of shit." Ayato spat as he kicked Yasahiro in the face with the bottom of his shoe. Yasahiro's expression did not weaver as he took the hit full on. He didn't even make a single sound like all the other dead investigators. "Tch, not a talker eh? Then we'll make you talk!" Ayato scowled.  
  
Ayato kicked Yasahiro to the ground and stomped a foot against his back keeping him in place. He then proceeded to grab both of Yasahiro's arms so they were sticking up into the air. Yasahiro had his right cheek pressed against the ground, he moved around, fighting against the ghoul. At least he would die knowing he was fighting against these beasts until the very end. Ayato let out a dry laugh at the human's pathetic attempts.  
  
"These seem important to you. You wouldn’t mind if I take them?" Ayato exclaimed sadistically, bending down and digging his teeth into Yasahiro's left shoulder. Tearing through the fat tissues in Yasahiro's arm as he yanked at the poor man's left arm with all his strength. With one powerful pull, the arm's muscles and bone completely detached themselves from the original body. The sound of ripping flesh and breaking bone played loudly next to Yasahiro's left ear. His eyes widened in complete horror as his arm in which was attached a few seconds ago was now completely gone. Yasahiro could see Ayato holding his dangling arm up in the air as if he was taunting him in a sick and twisted way. Part of the bare white bone that was still attached inside his arm poked through the blood dripping red flesh. His arm looked like one of those props you find in a haunted house to scare people, but those were all plastic and this one was his actual arm. Ayato then went on to bite down onto Yasahiro's right arm. Using raw strength and speed to tear Yasahiro's arm into shreds. His skin, his muscles and bone all tore like paper under the S ranked ghoul's strength. Chunks of fat and muscle tissue flew in every which direction, making it seem like it was raining blood and flesh from the sky. Not even the armored suits the CCG provided them even stood a chance against this ghoul's fury. Blood spurted out of the sockets of his arms, getting some of red liquid onto Ayato's face. Ayato returned back to the full extent of his height before wiping off the excess blood on his face with his arm from Yasahiro. A smudge expression was plastered against his face. Even though he would not show it, it felt good to let out some of the stress Kaneki put on him after breaking one hundred and three bones in his body. Ayato rolled his shoulders back, sighing.  
  
Yasahiro had finally let out an ear splitting scream each time a limb was torn off. It felt like his skin was on fire, like sheering hot thin wire had sliced his arms clean off. His cool composure was completely lost as he lost all strength in his body, he just watched the pooling red puddles around the areas where his arms once were. Ayato lifted the arm in which held Yasahiro's quinque and took a large bite out of it, tearing out a large chunk out of Yasahiro detached arm. Beads of sweat were formed all over his forehead as a single tear ran down his defeated expression.  
  
"Disgusting..." Ayato choked as he spat out the hunk of flesh. He dropped Yasahiro's useless arms onto the ground before stepping off of the ghoul investigator's back. "Dig in. Just don't eat the woman or this man. I want him to have the longest and most painful death out of all." he ordered, waving off at the other ghouls in which were under their command. The ghouls dove at the bloodied corpses of the dead doves. As if their bodies weren't mortified enough already, the ghouls began to tear up the bodies even more into smaller chunks.  
  
Tatara dropped down from the roof of the buildings above, his white cloak flaring out around him. All heads were turned his way as he landed. His expression he held almost looked annoyed, he eyes that were as red as the blood splattered around the ground from ghouls and humans alike. His movements were swift as he walked over to your disheveled body. He stood right next you, you reached your hand up at him before muttering something he couldn't quite catch, well, more like he didn't care about what you had to say. He took in a long breath, every inch of you was drenched with Arima's scent. It seemed the brothers were right, now he’d just have create fake exchange. Great. More work for him. Tatara wrinkled his nose before spinning around so his back was to you. He waved off at Noro who had already pulled out some sort of white cloth from his sleeve.  
  
"Take her back to the base." he stated plainly to Noro who obeyed immediately. This plan was taking far too long than Tatara had anticipated, he would rather not spend his time dwelling with these vile creatures.  
  
If Yasahiro had arms right now, he would reach out towards you but he obviously didn't. He watched painfully as Noro picked you up and placed a white cloth over you nose and mouth. Yasahiro watched as your already weaken body stopped stirring and drop limp. Yasahiro wanted to cry, but his eyes were dry and his whole body was shutting down.  
  
"Don't go... Please... Don't leave me all alone again..." Yasahiro voice croaked, his voice came out at a volume slightly above a whisper. He's never felt so much pain before in his whole entire life before, the only time it was this close was when he watched his whole family get slaughtered before the CCG finally arrived. His vision was slowly turning black as he felt his whole life flash in front of him. When his whole family died, his family's funeral, the many foster homes he lived in, finally getting adopted, his first meeting with you, when you became the best of friends, going to the CCG academy with you, becoming an investigator, becoming a First Rank.  
  
Giving up on trying to see where the ghouls would take you, he let his eyelids drop and sad smile played onto his lips as prepared for the end. At least he was going to die fighting against what caused him this pain. At least he could be able to rest knowing such. Feeling the ability to intake air become harder and harder, something deep down in his heart told him he didn't want to truly die. As Yasahiro slowly made his ways to whatever happened next, his last bit of conscious caught onto a voice,  
  
_"What an awful way to die..."_


	2. Chapter I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will probably be super cringey but it provides some more background stuff about the plot. I'm really sorry that I couldn't figure out a way to write this without it being super cheesy. Just bare with me! I promise the chapters after this will be much better.

Everything was dark and cold. You couldn't see, everything was like a black void. Your mind felt foggy, you couldn't think straight. Pain flooded your wounded side, causing you to wince and grit your teeth. The blood on the wound was now dried and hardened, but the was wound itself was still new. Your back laid flat against a hard surface, in which you presumed was the ground. You felt a rough cloth cover you eyes, blocking out your field of vision. Ice cold shackles, or whatever they were, bounded your feet and hands, making it impossible for you to move. A cool weak breeze blew against your bound figure, seeming to mock your inability to hide yourself from it's cold touch. You felt like you were in one of those cliche horror movies, where the killers has kidnapped their first victim and about to brutally rip them apart. Your throat felt awfully dry, making you unable to speak. An unconditional fear gnawed of your insides. The million dollar question was, what hell was going on?!   
You turned your body slightly trying to figure out your current situation, along with trying to remove whatever locked you together. A soft jingle of metals hitting each other rung out through the dead silence you were located in. Your ability to see may be gone, everything was just empty blackness upon even more empty blackness, but your other four senses were as sharp as every. Especially your ability to feel.   
You let out a labored groan as the slight movement had triggered your wound to pain you. You gritted your teeth as the pain burned like someone had dumped a fresh load of hot coals onto your side. The pain dampened your resolve as your movements weakened, you once again attempted to twist out of the restraints.   
Another pained groan escaped your dry and chapped lips. Tears began to well up in the corners of your eyes, creating tiny wet splotches on the cloth that covered your eyes. The newly formed scab over the wound had cracked and blood now seeped through your already blood soaked clothing.   
Your futile attempts to unbound yourself smoldered out as you unstrained your body and laid out against the ground. Your breaths came out as small huffs, making your chest rise up and down with each tired breath. Why did injuries have to make a body get tired so easily? You rolled over onto you side so your left cheek touched the ground. You did this so your injured side was hoisted up into the air so it didn't touch the ground. You seriously didn't need an infection to add onto the wound.   
Finally getting yourself stabilized, you began to questioning yourself on what could have possibly happened to get you here. Your head hurt like crazy as you tried to recall the past. All you really remember was this emergency call over the radio, then you were laying back and staring up into the sky with your blood everywhere. You couldn't have possibly stayed in the same place, for you most definitely didn't have a cloth over your eyes before.   
That's when you heard a door squeak open. Sets of footsteps echoed throughout your room as some people seemed to file in. You wanted to call out and demand why you were here and what was going on, but your throat burned, making you unable to speak. The only few noise you could make were a few inaudible sounds that no one would understand.   
A loud thunk rang out as something which seemed rather heavy was set onto the ground. You heard someone let out a low grunt before you were lifted up by the roots of your hair. The person grip was rough and it felt like they were intentionally manhandling you in this way. It felt like they were going to rip your very hair out from you scalp. You let out a cry of pain as you made tiny attempts to loosen their grip from your hair. The person who seemed to be gripping your hair let out a low growl, as if warning you that your struggling was only going to make matters worse for you. This seemed to dampen your struggles, but mostly you just didn't dare do anything consisting of too much movement or else you would only hurt yourself again with your wound.   
The shearing pain on your scalp diminished as you felt your bottom get set onto something that felt like a chair. A harsh grip grabbed you roughly by the shoulders and pushed you back. Your back pressed against something cold and hard, which you assumed was the back of the chair. You made small attempts to try and resist the strong grip that was trying to hold you back against the chair.   
  
"Hold still, we wouldn't want your pretty little face ruined now, would we?" a slightly higher pitched voice scoffed. You could tell the voice of the speaker belonged to a male, but it was a tab bit higher from what normal middle aged male adults had. The speaker must have been around your age, young, maybe something about twenty to twenty-three years old.   
  
You immediately felt yourself freeze up, you felt you knew this guys voice from somewhere. It felt so familiar, but yet you couldn't match this voice with a face you knew. Why couldn't you remember who this was? Your head throbbed once again as you tried to recall this person's identity in your memory. As you grit your teeth, trying to veer away the pain in your head, the people seemed to take advantage of your sudden pause. A cold, ridged metal wrapped around your wrists and your ankles, tying you down onto the chair.   
Someone seemed to flick on the lights to the room, a light click rung out as your vision was radiated with a white fabric. It seemed the cloth over your eyes wasn't very thick what so ever, it seemed they were just meant to block out your ability to see and not your ability to differentiate light.   
You let out a small yelp of fear as you felt a frigid hand graze over your exposed collarbone. Your originally snow white button down undershirt, and your fancy black business dress no longer showed any resemblance to what they used to be. You heard soft masculine chuckle as someone seemed to enjoy your little reaction from their cool touch. You felt their freezing fingers trail upwards to your neck from your collarbone, then from your neck to the little area of skin under your ear. You could feel the person's warmer breath brush against the rim of your ear. You swallowed a forming lump in your throat, the fear that had already been growing inside seemed to crank up a quite a few levels. You could feel yourself physically began to tremble as you slowly placed one piece of the large puzzle together. These "people" that stood before you weren't people, they were ghouls.   
It idea of getting eaten did not appeal to you. Having your flesh be ripped apart by human looking ravenous animals wasn't on your bucket list. In fact it was far from it, it was on a list on things you wished to never experience in your lifetime.   
Trying to veer yourself away from whoever was touching you, you turned your head. This seemed to make the person satisfied as they let out a quiet hum. The person's touch seemed to deplete, the cold fingers leaving your delicate and soft skin. You were about to return your head to a more comfortable and straight position before the person who had just touched you ripped off your blindfold. You wanted to let out a cry of surprise, but it seemed you've already used up all your tiny ability to speak.   
White light blinded your vision, your eyes were completely non-acquainted to the light after being blindfolded for your time being. You squinted your eyes, trying to readjust your eyes to the light.   
After a few moments of simultaneous blinking and plenty of squinting, your eyes finally became accustomed with the surprisingly bright lit room. Your eyes widened as you looked at people that stood before you. All of them were dressed in purple or red cloaks. They also wore some sort of mask as well to completely hid they features so you couldn't even tell which ghouls they were. But one thing in common for all of them, the Aogiri Tree symbol was embedded on their cloak. Your mouth was slightly sent ajar as your face contorted with fear. You've found yourself in a pretty bad situation haven't you?   
The ghoul who had forcefully tore off your blindfold backed away from. He walked back casually as if nothing had happened. This made you slightly offended, even with the overpowering fear that gnawed on your insides. You couldn't believe he just thoughtlessly walked off after he treated you like that. Plus, the closeness of his face and his touch had made you terribly uncomfortable. Not being in many relationships, you found this quite rude. Other women may think otherwise, but they would obviously be far more... experienced than you. Enough with these vulgar thoughts, you were actually terribly confused on why you were still alive though. Why haven't they killed you yet? You were a ghoul investigator and they were ghouls. You guys were natural enemies, yet why were you still being kept alive?   
One of the ghouls who stood in front of you, specifically the one in the center, nodded their head towards you. Immediately after the gesture was sent, a pair of two, menacing looking ghouls, branched away from the group and approached you. They walked up to you slowly, almost with caution, one tucked a hand into his sleeve. Expecting them to pull out some murder weapon, you squeezed your eyes shut and one again turned your head away. You heard someone sigh in annoyance as you shut your eyes. Your cowardice must be getting on some ghoul's nerves.   
The two ghouls who now stood beside you, the one who had reached their hand into their sleeve actually pulled a single white pill. Though you were still squeezing your eyes shut, the other ghoul who had come along forcefully grabbed ahold of your jaw. Your eyes snap open as you began to squirm under the person's grasp. Your mind stirred with anxiety and terror as your brain ran through the millions of things they would possibly do to you. The ghoul, surprisingly, gently place his finger over your lips. His touch gingerly lingered over your lips, for a split second you thought he actually wouldn't harm you. But seriously, they were ghouls, did you really think they were all fluffy and nice? A moment later the ghoul who's light touch was rested on your lips suddenly forced his fingers in between them. Your expression twisted with dismay as the ghoul slowly pried your mouth open. The pads of the ghoul's fingers were hooked around your teeth, making it so you couldn't clamp your teeth shut. It seemed they knew every single little idea that a captive would have. It was almost like they've had plenty of other captives in the past; actually, scratch that, they probably did have plenty of captives in the past so they knew what to expect. Of course, you hadn't made this ghoul's job easy; you pretty much resisted the whole way through, so much that you jaw actually hurt. Giving up now would surely mean death, but you knew your death would then most certainly be signed off for later. In all honesty, you weren't sure why you were resisting so much. You already knew you were going to die, yet your body refused to give in. Well, that's just the human's natural instinct, and when humans find something that decreases their chances to live, they try to obliterate it.   
  
The ghoul held your mouth open, just wide enough to presumably stuff a dumpling in. It was very obvious the ghoul was not even using a sliver of their full strength. Which made it all the more annoying for you, because you were trying your absolute best to wriggle out of his confinement.   
As you wiggled around, trying to escape from your restraints, the other ghoul who had taken out the strange white pill from their sleeve whipped his hand towards your face. His hand smashed down over your lips, stuffing the strangely soft and squishy pill into your mouth. He quickly retracted hand away as quickly as he had shoved it down. The ghoul seemed to gave out an aura of disgust as his hand returned back to his side. The other ghoul quickly inverted his actions, pulling his fingers out of your mouth and quickly used his palms to once again shut your mouth. He wrenched you head back, forcing you to swallow the pill.   
It wasn't that you were a drooler or had saliva control issues, but the ghoul who had been prying your mouth had his fingers laced with your transparent saliva. The ghoul's face was probably absolutely priceless under his mask to see his fingers were drenched in your spit.   
The two ghouls quickly jumped back to the group in a synchronized motion. You could feel the pill the stuff into your mouth slowly slide down your throat. You resisted the natural urge to swallow the pill, but oddly enough, you could feel the pill quickly dissolve from the warmth in your throat.   
You lurched your forward, throwing a fit of coughs as you tried to remove whatever they made you swallow. This obviously proved ineffective, as the pill had somehow already completely melted in your throat. You had actually expected the pill do something harmful towards you. But oddly enough, the previous burning sensation in your throat began to slowly subside. A soothing coolness seemed wash throughout your body, though your side still hurt like crazy, your head and throat no longer throbed. Surprisingly, a small sigh escapes your lips, you avert your eyes back to the group of ghouls. Your eyes narrowed, you began to open your mouth to lash out at them what the hell was going on; but one ghoul, the same ones who order the other two ghouls to give you the pill, lifted up their hand again. Apparently, this seemed to effectively stop you.   
  
"What is your relation with Arima?" the ghoul spoke with an emotionless voice, the voice was rather low, helping you to assume that this ghoul was a male. You brow raised in confusion, how in the devil’s name did they know about you and Arima? You were wearing his cloak... Was it because you wearing that white cloak you got from Arima? Millions of questions seemed to flood your head all at once, but all came down to one conclusion, they've mistaken you for someone else.   
  
"I don't understand what you mean-" you began, trying to explain yourself to the ghouls. You were in a relationship with him, but it wasn’t like you knew anything confidential. Plus your relationship wasn’t anything super serious, whatever the ghouls were trying to plan probably won’t work. But before you could explain anymore, another ghoul cut you off, you recognized this voice to be of the younger male ghoul.   
  
"Oh stop with your nonsense, just spill already. Quit acting dumb, we know you have close contact with the CCG's Reaper. There isn't a single spot of you that isn't polluted with his smell." he spat, the annoyance in his voice clearly showing through. You knew of the ghouls' excellent sense of smell, but you and Arima barely make any contact at all. Every once in a while, which would be at least a week long intervals, would Arima finally give you an embrace or something like that. And on the very special instances would he share a quick kiss, but all of them would be far too quick for you to ever respond. Other than those small touches, you've never had any more contact. How was it possible for you to polluted with his scent?   
  
"I-I don't know what you're talking about." you lied, trying to avoid that subject. The tone of your voice dropped dramatically, it was no longer as desperate and confused as it was before. In fact now it was much uncertain and nervous. It was painfully obvious to the ghouls you were lying, they didn't even need to focus on your change of smell, just your voice change was all they needed to tell.   
  
"What a pitiful liar..." the voice was from someone new now, their voice was monotone like the other one, but this one was much more tired and almost sad. The emptiness of the ghoul's voice really struck you, it reminded you of someone when you first met them... Yasahiro... Wait, Yasahiro! You remember you were with him right before you just sorta disconnect from the world. Feeling all your nervousness and uncertainty completely disappear without a trace, you leaned forward, going as far as the restraints would let you.   
  
"Where is Yasahiro? What did you do to him?!" you demanded, the slightest bit of anger seemed to seep into your voice. One of the ghouls just laughed when he heard your sudden outburst of desperation. Yasahiro was like a brother to you, of course you would care about his well being. How dare that ghoul mock your care for your friend! You were about to lash out at him, your fear and anxiety being smothered by your emotions, but he spoke before you could, what he said broke you.   
  
"He's as good as dead. I'm sure his body is rotting right now in the funeral parlor." he scoffed as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Now quit avoiding the topic!" his voice slowly began to rise in volume, every little decibel of his voice seemed to gradually stain with frustration. You were sure the ghoul was probably glaring at you right now under his mask, but you were the least bit afraid. You pursed your lip as you glared right back at him. Though you held a strong outer shell, your heart was cracked. Yasahiro, he couldn't be dead! He promise me he would never die on me! He couldn't be gone! You began to bite your lip as you felt tears began to form in the corners of your eyes.   
  
"No! I know nothing about the CCG if this what you’re getting at! I can't do anything for you! I'm useless!" you cried out. You once again began to struggle against the chains wrapped around your body. The already formed grudge you had against ghouls seemed to inflame. Not being able to help the tears that finally welled up enough to fall from your eyes. The clear salty water formed small streams from your eyes. You continued to lash out and yell at them about how Yasahiro was not dead and that you were not of use for them. Throughout your little tantrum, the ghoul in the center who seemed to the leader of the group waved his hand towards one the ghouls.   
  
"I want you to shut her up." he order, his voice blunt and brusque. Just looking at him made you shiver, even if he wore the same exact thing as all the other ghouls. He seemed to emit off this dark and ominous aura just by standing there. The way he spoke made him seem powerful and a person of importance, "Eyepatch, please."   
  
_Wait, Eyepatch? Wasn't that a S rank ghoul who had been recently reported to have join the Aogiri Tree?_ Your eyes widened as the ghoul approached you, frozen from the fear this realization brought, you could only stare as he towered over your tiny form. Strange thing was, he wasn't wearing what his description said he usually wore. He wasn't even wearing the signature mask where he got his name from. In fact, all of them were wearing clothing and masks that just made sure not a single feature was visible. They were just wearing purple cloaks with the hood pulled over and a completely blank white mask.   
You watched as one of the ghouls once again walked forward to you. He moved his arm so his right hand was level with his chin, he bent his pointer finger towards him and rested his thumb over it, keeping it down. A loud crack rung out as he bent his finger forward. The skin on his hand was sickly pale, it almost looked like his skin was made of snow. But his nails were jet black, greatly contrasting with is pale skin.   
  
"Understood..." the proclaimed Eyepatch said as he cracked the rest of his fingers on his right hand. With each sickening sound his finger emitted, you flinched. He lifted the same hand and leveled it about half a meter over your right forearm. Time seemed to just drag along as he stood completely idle, void to any movement. You just continued to stare at him as your eyes clouded over with terror. It felt like your heartbeat was in your throat, pounding like crazy.   
  
Minutes seemed to pass on and atmosphere seemed to get more and more intense. You just continued to stare at him wide-eyed, fearful on what he was planning to do. He seemed to stare at you for a brief moment before he slammed his hand downwards. As hard as he could.   
A loud series of cracks were heard emitting from your arm. An ear piercing scream immediately found its way out of your mouth. Tears instantaneously began to form and fall from your eyes. You squeezed your eyes shut as you clamped your mouth closed and gridded your teeth together. It felt like your flesh was aflame once again. The same sheering hot pain you recalled feeling from before. As the pain slowly intensified, you felt your arm slowly go numb. You opened your eyes a sliver and glanced at your arm. Your vision was blurry with your conspicuous tears that were welled up in your eyes. But even through your blurry vision, you could see that the forearm of your right arm was swelling. The fact that your arm had become numb was no good sign, when the bone broke it must have hit a nerve and damaged it.   
  
"Now answer the question." ordered the one who had instructed the ghoul standing right next to you to break your arm. The slightest bit of annoyance tinted his voice as he glared right at you; though not visible to the eye. The ghoul, even though it wasn't shown, seemed to be enjoying the suffering you were enduring. It wasn't their fault, the CCG would have done the same to their kind.   
  
"O-okay fine! I'll tell you!" you shouted, feel yourself beginning to commit a grave sin that would surely send you to the deepest depths of hell. "Yes I am in a relationship with Arima Kishou. And all I know of the CCG is that they’re trying to find one-eyed owl. That's honestly the only things I know! I don't even know who they suspect or who they plan to assign to go. In fact, I overheard this while I was passing by a meeting room in the CCG. They would never actually tell someone like me-"   
  
"That's enough." the same ghoul once again ordered before he nodded to the ghoul Eyepatch. He motioned with his hand to your small fragile body, Eyepatch nodded before he lift his arm up once again. Your pathetic excuse for begging was really starting to annoy, not just the supposed leader, but everyone else in the room as well.   
  
"No seriously! I've answered your question and I’ve told you what information I have with the CCG! That's all I honestly know, please let me go! Please don't hur-" you cried out in vain before Eyepatch slammed his hand onto your upper arm. Another splitting scream escape your lips, you felt your whole right arm burst into a indescribable pain. All you could sense we pain. Even more tears than before were running down your face, the once smaller streams were now full on rivers on your cheeks.   
  
The leading ghoul waved his hand once again before he exited out of the room. The other ghouls who were standing in the room as well slowly filtered out. Not a single word or sound was made, only your quiet sobbing and whimpers of pain echoed around the concrete room. A loud clang rung out as final noise, provided by the ghouls. Though it was nothing but door closing, it almost symbolized as a warning to you, actually, more of a wake up call. The reports and stories were no joke, all ghouls really deserved to die.   
You let your head fall back, letting yourself somewhat relax. Taking in a small breath, you began to think about the warning Arima had told you the moment you had began your training at the Ghoul Investigator Training Academy. In fact, he had told everyone in the class, 'From this point I can not begin to explain the kinds of trouble you may experience because of this job. By accepting you must understand the pain you might go through...'   
Only now you were starting to understand what Arima had truly meant by pain. You thought you had already known the feeling of the pain he had meant, but you were clearly wrong. Ghouls were monsters that deserved to be driven into extinction. You wished all ghouls would just die; a burning hatred ignited and began to course through you.   
  
"Stupid monsters! I hate you! I hate all of you! You deserve to be killed, you deserve what the CCG does to you!!" you yelled out, you were sure no one could even hear you, but this boiling rage that was building inside you needed to be released. First they kill Yasahiro, then they go around and interrogate you even though it's pretty obvious you're no viable information. Your quiet little sob had now evolved into balling. As you cried, you continued to scream out how much you hated ghouls and how they deserved to die. You would twist around violently as you cried out. As you thrashed around your arm would hurt like hell, but your anger completely numbed out the painful torture. You used all your strength and leaned forward against the restraints, fueled by some delusional thought that if you pulled hard enough the restraints would break.   
  
A quick image of Yasahiro's face when you two were both kids flashed across your mind. All the pain and sadness he held within him was far too much for any child. Yet he would stand tall instead of being crippled by the harsh experience he went through. In fact, he used this to fuel his motive, his determination to wipe out all the ghouls in Japan. He would always say it with such a happy and motivated smile when you were younger. Yasahiro had always had a mean and cold outer personality, but deep down inside he was the sweetest person you had even known. He would always prioritize others before himself. Though when fighting ghouls it might be overlooked a bit, but who could blame him? With ghouls causing his miserable past, he would most definitely have a huge grudge against them. You also remember him telling you he never actually liked fighting. At the same time with his hatred, he also wished ghouls and humans didn't have to fight over their differences. Most importantly he just wanted the world to be peaceful, no more violence, no more bloodshed.   
  
You felt yourself crying harder as you recalled those few memories of Yasahiro. "All Yasahiro wanted was a normal life! He never wanted to be in this fight! But because of you stupid monsters and your stupid killing, you make people like Yasahiro!" you yelled out. You hadn't intended to say that, but having yourself know that Yasahiro's death had taken place in vain so the stupid Aogiri Tree could interrogate you for information made your blood boil.   
  
You continued to scream and shout until your voice became hoarse and you could barely make a sound. The flames of your anger were slowly burning out, allowing the pain in your arm to finally surface onto your radar of feeling once more. Your body was completely exhausted, you could barely move any muscle in your body. Your strength escape your body like an untied balloon, you immediately fell back against your restraints. Your head fell back once again, your eyes puff, red and swollen from all your crying. Feeling your exhaustion finally catch up with your weakened body, you could feel the gash in your side was opened again. You had nearly forgot about the wound in your side, it seemed to be completely forgotten from the pain of your arm being broken. But now with it open again, you could feel a warm liquid escape from your side. You shut your eyes. All this struggling was pointless, all your attempts were futile.   
You could feel an overwhelming sleepiness settle itself in your system, replacing your anger. You felt yourself slowly slip into a blissful heaven, your body became light and the pain seemed to dull out. You happily allowed the peace to over take your body, falling into an ever so dreamless sleep.   


* * *

Tatara briskly walked out of the room you were being held in. He immediately ripped off the stupid blank white mask he was forced to wear in order to keep their features completely hidden. They were asked to do so because if you were ever released you would not be able to recall them. You would most certainly not forget the faces of the ghouls who made your life absolute hell.   
He could hear the other ghouls exit out the room after him. It wasn't necessary for all these ghouls to be in the room with him, but shear number was meant to make your feel intimidated while they questioned you. Their interrogation worked far less than Tatara had anticipated, but at least this was not the main idea why you had been brought here. He just needed to stall out enough time for forage a fake exchange of a ghoul from the CCG. He knew Arima would not be pleased with having a whole hostage situation without telling him, especially since the person was apparently someone close to him.    
Though Tatara wondered why you in particular would be the significant other to such a figure like Arima. He’d expect such a successful man like Arima to have an equally extraordinary partner. You were just boring, nothing stood out on you that would make anyone stop in their tracks. Not to mention they way you smelled, or lack thereof. All people had a certain scent to themselves yet you didn’t. All you smelled like was the scent of the people you were last in contact with. You didn’t have your own signature smell that could make you easily identifiable. It was like the world wanted you to be forgettable, insignificant. Yet watching you suffer brought slight excitement to his rigid self. Though really any sort of suffering did. Sadism after all, was a hobby of his. He had debated before whether or not he’d keep pets like Jason did to fuel his sadistic desires. But ultimately Tatara didn’t enjoy the facilitated torture as much he did torture that occurred in the moment. Therefore he had chose not to keep any pets and instead, ruin people when he felt like it.   
  
Tatara rubbed the back neck and closed his eyes. He took in a sharp inhale, already anticipating what Arima would have to say about them acting without telling him. His body felt stiff as he continued to walk down the hallway in the abandoned building. The chilly evening air blew through the open building, but didn’t cause any change in Tatara. As we walked he could hear your muffled cries in the empty hallway. Though a tiny smile did play at his lips as he heard your anguish cries. Maybe having a human around isn’t so bad after all.   


* * *

Arima observed the bloodied battle scene. Dead and decaying bodies of both ghouls and humans alike littered the ground. Blood and hunks of torn out flesh all made small piles and stains on the cement. Blood was even smeared onto the walls of the alleyway where the fight had taken place.   
Many investigators rushed around the mess, collecting blood samples and mapping how the battle must have for taken place. The battle had been minor loss for the CCG number wise, but rank wise, losing such promising young investigator like Yasahiro was devastating. The CCG need all the talented investigators they could get, for they couldn't rely on Arima alone. Eventually Arima would be long gone from the face of this world, in fact sooner than he’d like.   
  
Sighing heavily, Arima set down his black suitcase. The suitcase’s edges were decorated in beautiful gold design. With his now free right hand, Arima reached down to grab something that had caught his eye the moment he had arrived. A white strip of cloth, lying in a small pool of blood. Arima's hand touched thick red crimson blood, but he didn't mind in the slightest bit. He's lived a life with far too much bloodshed to care anymore. He scooped up the fabric, rubbing it between his pointer finger and thumb. Just as he thought, this was the same material his own white jacket was made of. Which would also be the same for the one you wore.   
Arima once again scanned scene, not a single body scattered on the ground wore any white. Which would only mean one thing, either you or your body were missing. The slightest bit of relief washed over Arima, of course, this was not just for you, it was for his parents as well. With your missing body, there could be many different possibilities on what actually happened to you. Arima hoped none of the death scenarios he had in his mind actually happened. There was clear enough evidence to show the CCG members had an upper hand in the beginning before something, as in reinforcements or an ambush, happened to turn the victory around. Listening in on the many people talking around him, it's confirmed that the whole group except Yasahiro and you were dead. With most of the group dead, it was highly likely you and him were dead as well. The CCG would probably pronounce you both dead. He would probably have to bribe the CCG to only switch your status to a MIA and not to DECEASED. It would be quite the pain to explain to his and your parents on what happened to you.   
  
There was one huge secret he was keeping from you, the relationship you shared was all arranged. He never had feelings towards you when he asked you to your first date together. In fact, it was all a lie, but that didn’t mean feelings weren’t developed over the time you two spent together. Arima was too prideful to admit his heart was a little soft for you. His adoptive parents were starting to worry for him because he was twenty-nine, almost thirty now and he was still single. If he were still pursuing women and just hadn't found the one yet, his parents would have cared so much. But he was, quote on quote by his parents, “married to his work”. Causing his parents to be quite frantic about it. They always talked how he should just leave his job and work at a less extreme section of the justice system. They also always explained how he was their only child, and for him to die, it would be the single most painful thing for any parent to experience. Though he never took their words to heart because he knew he wasn’t going to stay around long. He wished he could have been born a normal child but fate wouldn’t allow it. Instead he was born as a failure in attempts of achieving naturally mixed human and ghoul genetics.   
Arima had tired to explain to his parents countless times that especially because he worked in the CCG, he couldn't go around and get married easily. Plus his parents wouldn’t understand his whole complicated origin issue with the CCG breeding human and ghoul together. He would constantly have an extremely high rate of dying, and if he were to ever pass, he would end up leaving the poor woman a widow. He told them he need a strong independent woman to be his wife; a woman who could protect herself. And that, was probably the biggest mistake he has ever made.   
After he told his parents what kind of woman he was looking for, his parents went around searching around frantically for a compatible wife. His parents found countless women to be Arima's future partner, many he found shallow, only liking him for his strengths and rank in the CCG. They were all strong women yes, but some in just the wrong ways. He greatly appreciated how much his adoptive parents treated him like he was their very own child, but he felt like this was excessive. Plus he had his own agenda he wanted to go through before his death.    
To humor his parents, he would take each girl they push onto him to dinner. And that's where he would decide whether to go through with marriage or not. Most of the time Arima would just try to kill time as the dinners would drag on. None of these woman ever interested him in the slightest bit. Yet not all of the women were bad, any man would be lucky to marry a few of them, but they just weren't for him. They just weren't strong enough, they didn't understand the real dangers of ghouls. None of them have ever encountered one, or never encountered one when they intended to kill. All of them were too... Sheltered.   
Right as his parents were about to give into Arima's single status, an old friend of theirs confronted them. The old friends happened to be your parents. Well, just one of your parents, your mother. Your father had fallen terribly ill a few days ago. Knowing he wouldn't be lasting much longer with his weak body, he wanted to see you at least get married before he passed. So your mother had met up with Arima’s parents about the matter. And once again, his parents pressured him go and meet you. He agreed, planning to humor his parents and finally turn you down just like all the other women...   
  
*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･*･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*   
  
About Three Years Ago...   
  
Arima waited patiently in his seat, he had made a reservation for dinner again at a restaurant. This place was actually somewhere Arima had yet to eat at. Many of his fellow investigators have been very confused on why he has been out on so many dinners for the past month. They all found this terribly out of character for Arima, small talk was often spoken out this topic. Arima chose to ignore all of that, planning to take the high ground as he always does. These little rumors really didn’t faze him one bit, but he guessed it was always nice to have a little talk in the workplace.   
He began to scan around in the small fancy sushi place. A very large crowd swarmed around the highly rated restaurant, many people walked in and out of the doorway. Arima had chose a place like this because the food was simple and easy to finish. Which would make this quick and painless dinner to get over with and finally get his parents out of his hair. He still wore his CCG uniform, Arima's efforts towards these “hock ups” set up by his parents were very low at this point. He was actually beginning to get sick and tired of these meetings, but he really couldn't turn down his parents.   
His parents had informed him you were younger he was, but he was told you acted mature enough to be mistaken for older. You were in fact twenty, nearly twenty-one at this point of time. Arima looked over the crowd for what he assumed you might look like: a fine young woman with plenty of unnecessary makeup as it was common for younger females. Fine jewelry decorating a probably expensive dress. As Arima continued to look around, trying to find you, he failed to notice someone approach him.   
  
"U-um, are you Arima-san? Arima Kishou?" a quiet and shaky voice asked. Arima turned over to look at whoever just spoke out to him. What he saw was completely different from what he had expected you to look like, and in fact he had thought that the person he spoke to wasn’t you.   
  
"Yes, you are?" he asked, curious why someone like you had known his name. But then again, he was wearing his CCG uniform so it was possible for you to recognize who he was. He was completely bewildered on why you had approached him.   
  
You remained silent for a moment, suggesting to him you may have zone out for a second. Being the person Arima was, he waited patiently for you to finally respond. He watched you blink a few times, noticing you had a very peculiar look in your eyes. It looked as if you were looking at something far away, hiding some sort of trauma. It glazed over a pair of pretty eyes. This was probably something normal people would have a hard time catching, but for Arima, it was the first thing he noticed about you. It wasn't your looks, it wasn’t your body, but it was for what you've went through. You knew what pain was.   
  
As you had blink, you pulled yourself back to present. Realizing you've been asked question by Arima, you quickly replied, "O-Oh I’m sorry!” You rushed to introduce yourself, “I was told to meet you here as a request from my parents." you gave his a quick and polite bow in apology. A tiny smile formed on Arima's lips as he got up and bowed as well. He was no longer at the CCG, it would have been rude of him to treat you like the way he did with people during his work hours. Out of work he was just normal civilian just like everyone else in Japan. He began to sit back down before he glanced at you, noticing how you hadn't moved one muscle yet. He raised an eyebrow at you before you quickly rushed to your own seat.   
  
"Heh... I just wasn't expecting you to very bow towards me." you laughed nervously as you scratched the back of your head. Arima continued to stare at you, confused on what you ment. "I've just joined the CCG, a new recruit. Well, not really new anymore, but still somewhat new. I came about three months ago, I graduated from the Ghoul Investigator Training Academy." you explained, smiling kindly towards him.   
  
Arima nodded his head in understanding as he waved a waiter over to order food.   
  
Well, this was going to be much more interesting than he thought...   
  
*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･*･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*   
  
It's been about three years since then, Arima moved into the apartment right next to yours. This had been a secret request from his parents, but he had lied about it and said he felt the need to be closer to you. He had also become your boyfriend soon after the dinner you two shared. This was yet another silent request from his parents, but he didn't mind it. Arima actually found you very interesting, he wouldn't say he liked you, but he didn't dislike you.   
Your father over the three years had passed, and before that time came, Arima actually went to speak with your father. Arima had known your father as a kid because of your two families being very good friends. Arima as he grew up, had been very close to your father, almost like a second father. He had been so close that Arima had called him his uncle until his parents explained to him your father was merely his father childhood friend. But even with the blood difference, you father still loved Arima as his very own son. So he felt the need, once again, to be good family friend to pay him a visit before he would pass away.   
  
While he had been there, the two spoke about when Arima was still a little kid. Joking about how he had been suck a cry baby before. While they laughed and talked out the good times, your father had become suddenly serious as he brought up the topic about you...   


* * *

A sickly old man sat in the hospital room a top his bed. His hair was all white, parts of his hair had fallen off from his old age. The man's skin was wrinkled and his old cloudy eyes held a knowing glow, symbolizing his intelligence. Though at this moment his eyes were closed as he hummed quietly, Arima sat beside him with his hands slightly place on the bed as he thought about how he would answer the elderly man's question.   
  
"Kishou... You don't have to, I would never force to do such a thing. But, there is one thing I would like to ask of you. Even if you and my daughter never end up getting married, I just ask you to keep her safe. I know you two are nearly ten years apart, and I know you guys have barely even seen each other." the white haired and wrinkled man held his hand out and placed it over Arima's. His eyes were now open, staring deep into Arima’s eyes. This was a look he remember from when he was younger, when your father looked like this, he was serious. "I've always cared you, not just as my good friend's son, but like my own. Remember when bought Christmas presents for you every year until you grew out of age? Those were the good days." he laughed quietly to himself before returning to main conversation again. "I know I'm getting sicker by the moment and I won't be around anymore to protect and guide my precious daughter. So in my place like I did for you, I want you to be like her older brother and lead her on the right path while I'm away. Please Kishou."   
  
Arima stared back at your father, he remember your father to a very tall and strong character. He had always had a kind and gentle expression on his face through any situation. Your father had once been in the CCG before he withdrew from the job so he could stay with his family. He still stayed in the justice system, but he merely notched down to a normal police officer. Arima looked away from the elderly man's gaze before quickly looking back, with a question in mind.   
  
"What about Yasahiro? Isn't he like her older brother? Didn't he used live just next door to you?" Arima asked, curious about why he hadn't chosen Yasahiro, but him instead.   
  
Your father let out a slow sigh before he began staring out the window in his hospital room. "I asked myself the same question, but I couldn't quite pull out an answer. There's just something about the Ike kid I just don't trust. Something about him makes me feel uneasy, almost like there's a burning hatred or monster inside of the cold eyed kid. I just felt like I couldn't hand my daughter's life over to him, or place my trust and approval. I've never liked her running around the neighborhood with Ike, but children never listen. They always find a way to sneak pass." he laughed, patting Arima's hand. It felt refreshing for Arima to spend his time with your father again. The sweet childhood memories he had given to him were held very close to Arima's heart.   
  
Arima nodded and closed is eyes for a moment, the answer was simple. For all the things your father had done for him this was only a simple task in return. Quite literally too, Arima's own father was always busy with business so he was never really around to be Arima's father figure. Your own father was quite literally the foundation of his childhood.   
  
"Yes, I promise I will." Arima answered calming, but still trying to express how serious he was about this topic. "It's a promise I will never break." He reassuringly placed his own hand over your father's hand which was still placed over his own.   
  
Your father smiled at him before returning his body into normal straight position so he was staring at the ceiling. Your father closed his eyes once again before speaking for one last time,   
  
"Good, thank you Kishou. I really appreciate it. Now I can finally rest in peace knowing my daughter is in good hands." he paused for a moment before adding one last thing, "Kishou, I want you to know you have my full approval when and if that day comes."   
  
Then the heart monitor goes off.   
  
Your father had died right after talking with Arima. He knew your father wanted you to marry him, but he didn’t want to force anything onto you. On top of that, he wasn’t really sure if he’d be able to commit to such a relationship.    


* * *

**Present Time, in an Alley of the Twentieth Ward...**   
  
Arima bunched up the strip of cloth in his hand. He brought up the fist holding the cloth out in front of him. Blood that had soaked into cloth slowly squeezed out as Arima tightened his grip around the cloth. The blood ran down onto the back of his hand, making small trails of red on his usual pale skin. The slightest bit of anger began to stir in his heart. Though he wouldn’t show it, he felt utterly disappointed for allowing this to happen. He was breaking the promise he made with probably the most important person in his life. Arima frowned in his own self failure, how could he have failed such a simple task? All he had to do was keep one woman from dying, and the woman could fend for herself most of the time.   
Muttering to himself in disappointment, he began to walk away from the scene, knowing what he had to do next. He knew he hadn’t contact the Aogiri Tree about not interfering with anything related to you, but he was still rather ticked off that they’d try something like this without telling him.   
  
"Arima-san! Where are you going?" asked a fellow investigator who was at scene as well. Arima recalled seeing this person before, but couldn't quite pinpoint the name. There were far too many ghoul investigators for Arima to remember all of their names. He turned to look over at person, facing him, a slightly intimidating expression was set upon his face. His lips were pressed in a straight line as his eyes were narrowed, looking like they were glaring at everything.   
  
"Somewhere. Now, what's the report?" Arima asked calmly, despite his slightly angered and frightening face. He quickly stuffed the bloodied cloth into his pocket as he stared right at the investigator. He could visibly see the poor investigator begin to shake in his boots, he just been at the wrong place, the wrong time.   
  
"W-well, we are planning to mark the two missing investigators deceased-" the investigator began before Arima cut him off by giving him a new order,   
  
"Mark the Rank 1 as deceased and leave the Rank 2 as MIA. I'll be going, inform the director I'll be taking a leave for a while." Arima instructed as he reached down and grabbed his quinque he had set down earlier so he could pick up the piece of cloth.   
  
Arima began to walk away from the scene, his back turned to all the blood shed. The investigator quickly pulled out a pen and began scribbling something down frantically on a scratch piece of paper.   
  
"Wait Arima-san, I don't think the director will approve a leave right now. He probably still needs you for the One-Eyed Owl investigation-" he began once again, trying to get Arima to return back with the group. He quickly rushed up to Arima, trying to compromise with him.   
  
Arima turned to look back at the investigator. His face twisted in the slightest bit, annoyed with the persisting investigator. He knew the man was only doing his job, but right now he had a promise to fulfill for your father. "Then tell him I'm going on a solo investigation. I'm going to go hunt down a few Aogiri Tree members. I might be gone for a while..." Arima said, cutting off investigator's sentence.   
  
The man was completely frozen, only able to watch as Arima slowly walked away from the alley. His contrasting white coat stood out in the dark streets, making him seem like some sort of ghost. Too bad Arima's motive to find you was driven by his dedication to the promise he had with your dad and not you. It would have been any woman's dream come true to have a man bursting through a whole bunch of danger just to save them. Then to finally scoop them up into their arms and tell them they love them. But sadly, Arima just couldn't find the feelings within himself like that for you. His just didn't have romantic feelings for you, but he was interested by you. Something about you just caught his attention, he couldn't quite explain it but he was just, intrigued by you.   
Arima continued on his way, knowing exactly where he was going. All he knew was he needed to find you, for if he didn't, he would never forgive himself for letting your father finally died relying on a false promise.


	3. Chapter II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long to write this. This chapter in particular had a lot of elements I needed to change from the original plot. Also feel free to leave a comment! I'd love to hear your thoughts.

You stared blankly at the dull grey ceiling. You could no longer grasped at the reason why you were experiencing such traumatizing abuse. No person should ever go through what you had. Your head throbbed like crazy, the absence of remembrance and memory toyed with you. It felt like you were afloat in a vast emptiness with one single element present,   
  
  
  
_ Pain. _   
  
  
  
So much _pain_.   
  
  
  
Your whole body felt like it was ablaze, the searing hot agony made you wish you were dead. How sinful could you have been to have to go through this devastating torture?   
  
  
  
_Why_..?   
  
  
  
Tears began to prick at the corners of your eyes. You felt your nose start to become stuffy. Though your body and mind wanted to mourn and grieve over something that was lost, you couldn't recall what you were missing. In fact, you felt like everything had completely vanished. It seemed like your memories had slipped through the cracks of your fingers like water. No matter how hard you tried to think about anything that had once occurred, you'd be met with a splitting headache or just turn up empty handed. The only few droplets of recollection you knew about yourself were your name, age and a few bits and pieces of your family.   
  
Like a scene frozen in time, a very broad and tough looking man held his hands outstretched towards you. The tiniest bit of stubble sprinkled over his chin. His slightly lengthy hair was swaying in the light breeze that blew by. His mouth was tugged up in a sincere smile, his eyes peacefully shut in the joy and happiness that seemed to be recalled in this single memory. A few very light wrinkles were creased on his forehead, showing the increasing age that was growing on him. A deep tuneful laughter was heard emitting from the man's throat. You began to run towards the large figure, his arms outstretched towards you. The man seemed to be wearing a uniform, a police uniform to be exact. He was dressed completely in dark blue and black. A single glistening gold colored badge was pinned onto the dark outfit. He was also equipped with a black belt littered with the normal policemen equipment such as handcuffs and pepper spray. The odd thing was, he also had a metal suitcase placed right next to him. Did police officers always have suitcases? You brushed that thought aside, wanting to relish in the single memory you had. In the memory you began to call out, " _Otosan! Otosan!~_ ".   
Your voice was very high pitched, which made you assume you were possibly a little girl when this memory occurred. Though you didn't have one hundred percent confirmation that this little girl's point of view you were looking through was actually you, you had a persistent gut feeling it was you.   
Your small fragile hands reached forward to return your father's inviting embrace. As you moved your head over your father's shoulder and nuzzled yourself into his chest, you could see a yet again another person. A woman.   
Her shoulders were very narrow and her delicate hands rested on top of each other as they rested out in front of her. The woman's hair was a dark brownish black color that was fashionably cut right above her shoulders. She had her hair parted slightly off to the left. The hair in front was cut into side bangs, making her look younger than she probably was. Her eyes were also a soft dark brown, a very average looking Japanese woman. The corners of her eyes were decorated with the smallest pairs of crow's feet. You could see light amounts of makeup she had applied onto her face. Though her name or her relation with you was never made clear in the memory, you remembered her as your mother.   
There were also two other people in your very vague memory. Both of them looked like relatively younger boys. While one of them seemed to be more of an older teen, the other one looked much younger and around your age during that time.   
You knew the younger boy. He had short and choppy blond hair, but the tips seemed to be darker than the rest. It made it seem the little boy had dip dyed his hair a very dark shade of blond. His eyes were a brilliant hazel, the prettiest pair of eyes you've probably seen. Well, you couldn't be sure, you had no memory of nearly anyone that you presumably once known.   
The younger boy as well, was smiling at you like your mother. But the odd thing was, the look on his face was so pained... The expression he held on his face showed happiness, though the strained look in his eyes revealed otherwise. You felt sympathetic towards the boy, something in you recognized him. Something told you that he had an unimaginably heartbreaking past; the definition of an absolute nightmare.   
  
You felt the warm tears that had been building up in your eyes finally spill out. It almost felt like a loss to lose such warmth from your body. Though it seemed the bitter cold winter had passed and the weather was becoming slightly warmer for spring, everything still felt intensely cold in the windowless cement room you stayed in.   
  
Your mind began to wander back to that single memory you had in your very empty mind. Then there was the other boy... This time, you had absolutely no sense of any familiarity from the blackish blue haired teen whatsoever. He had fairly long hair like your father, and you swore it looked almost exactly the same as your father's. His bangs were cut in a way that resembled the letter "M". The hair right above his eyes was cut just above his eyebrows. The hair between his eyes, resting right above his nose, was much longer and ended at bottom of his eyes. The sides and the rest of his hair ended about chin length, possibly a little shorter around the back. His nose was rather slim and a tad bit more pointed than the usual Japanese nationality. He also had an angular face that fit well with his longer dark hair. The boy had a pair of rounded, yet rectangular framed glasses. The glasses he wore made him seem much older and mature. Well, you really couldn't be sure on that matter. Something just made you feel that this boy was more youthful, like you had said earlier, probably a younger teen. His lips were turned in a natural frown as he seemed to look at you in that memory. He seemed average apart from his eyes, you'd probably never notice him on the streets if his eyes weren't holding the glare they did.   
The teen's eyes were narrowed, and they seemed to glimmer with jealousy and hate. His eye were an original dull grey, but a few tiny lighter streaks of cadet grey gave him a slightly less dead look. He also had exceptionally long eyelashes, so long that if you had only looked at his eyes, you might have mistaken him for a girl.   
The boy was probably one of the more attractive males in his school, but the intense hatred shining through his eyes shook you to core. The look he was giving you in this memory scared you even more than the masked man with the white cloak, yet the masked man was the one constantly tormenting you and watching you suffer in unbelievable ways.   
  
The door slowly creeped open, you tilted your head towards the metal door. A lone male stood at the door way. Immediate dread filled your whole body.    
  
A pair of grayish purple eyes gazed upon your withered body. The man’s eyes narrowed slightly. It seemed like he was smiling wickedly, but it was hard to tell with the black beak-like mask which covered most of his features. His purple hair was ruffled and a bit messy, something looked to be on his mind. The guy only visited you once but you already hated him. You remember he'd walked inside, leaning his back against the rim of the door frame. His arms were crossed lazily over his chest as he stared at you.   
  
When he had visited you, you had recently just went through another session with the cloaked man. That time, the bastard had dislocated both your arms. And being the ass he was, he didn't pop them back into place, leaving it for someone else to do his dirty work. Which just happened to be the purple haired man. He laughed as he made his way towards you, grinning as he took pleasure in the job he was about to do. He slowly trudged behind you, kicking his feet as he moved along. He took your left arm and began to make it move in circles, enjoying the whimpers of pain as the moved your arm. Your throat had already been worn out from the yelling at the cloaked man, so all noise you could make out now was just small whimpers. Yet even with all the previous crying, you were still able to produce many tears as the man continued to mess with you. He spoke some words to you, but your mind was far too disconnected by the pain that you could barely hear him. Your eyes glazed over from the overwhelming amounts of stress applied onto your body.   
Eventually, the man seemed satisfied by his work and popped your arms back into place which finally provided a scream from you. The man backed away from you as he laughed once again, quickly exiting the door. During that point in time, your feet had recently been broken by an obvious individual. They had actually allowed you to be untied from the horrid chair and on the ground. Your feet was probably the only limb they had actually take time and actual proper care of. Hand-made casts were wrapped loosely tied around your feet, making it seem the person who had put it on didn't care if it was encased correctly. Your feet were probably also the only ones to healed somewhat correctly. By now, they were nearly healed, unlike your arm which was never really tended to, leading to be still broken.   
  
In a blink of an eye he was before you, staring down at you. His sudden close presence brought you back the the present. His hands reached over to your arms. You let out a loud scream as he pressed down on your broken bones. The burning pain it brought seemed to send you back on another flashback. You vision shifted back in time where there had been a group of people in this room. All of them wore blank white masks and variations of different colored cloaks. You could feel the man press even harder against your arm and let out another cry of agony as the scenery of the flashback changed. One of the cloaked men were now very close in proximity to you. His arm was raised over your arm posed to strike. Suddenly, as quick as the images came, it vanished. Oh what a bloody coincidence. The moment you were axing yourself about why you had you arm broken in the first place, the man managed to force you into remembrance of the moment it had been broken. You weren't sure whether you should thank him or hate him like all the others that had inflicted pain on you. Even if he had managed to help you gain a brief memory as he fulfilled the needs of his sadistic personality, the memory still didn’t tell you anything about yourself. Yes, it explained one of the many mysteries you had about yourself and the many injuries that marred your body, but it did nothing to explain anything about your situation. Though the torture literally did nothing to help you, you were still somewhat grateful that one more miniscule piece of your memory, other than the one of your family, had fallen into place.   
The door slammed open as someone marched into the room, clearly furious. The man who had been pressing down on your injury quickly jumped away as he turned his attention to the person who had just entered the room. The person who had entered wore a snow white cloak that fit nicely against his built body. A blood red metallic mask that matched his crimson eyes was fixed onto the lower half of his face. Thin white eyebrows were angled in a very steep slope showing his eminent anger. His hair was cut in an "M" shape, just like the boy in your memory, though his was a colorless white and the boy's was a dark blue. Not to mention the fact that his hair was a lot shorter than the boy's. Unlike the man who had attacked you, this person you actually knew, meaning he's come to your room before. You've even given a nickname to him for the amounts of times he's visited you. You liked to call him Mr. Cloak. The cloaked man always came to either check if you weren't dead yet, to see if your wounds were being somewhat tended, and to break you.    
  
There were a few others who would come into your room every once awhile, but those were limited to only one other person. The other person also had white hair. The white haired person came for maybe two or three times, but each time was the same. He would stare at you with his cold grey eyes, sigh, and walk away. He almost seemed to be giving a sign of pity or empathy to you. He never really did anything much, you couldn't say you liked him, but you couldn't say you hated him either. His presence wasn't all that bad, something about him seemed calming. When he entered to visit you, you could feel yourself loosen and relax. He seemed to bring in a gentler aura. Though each visit was brief, it gave you hope that not everyone here was out to get your blood.   
  
"No one asked you to come." the cloaked man said, the slightest bit of anger lingered in his voice. The other man seemed to flinch a tiny bit once he heard his harsh voice. His expression twisted as he back away from your chair. He rolled his head back and rolled his eyes at the cloaked man.   
  
"It so boring around here, can’t I just have a little bit of fun?" the purple haired man snapped back. He shoved his hand into his jacket and turned back to face the other man, "Its not like you own her or anything." the cloaked man just glared the other man's words. His words made no sense to you, but he spoke of ownership?! What did that mean? Were you being owned by these wicked people? He continued to glare at the man before his gaze slowly wandered towards you. His blood red orbs narrowing as he stared at your figure, almost like if your existence was an offense to his eyes. His body followed suit of his gaze as he now turned facing straight at you. Something seemed to glimmer in his eyes, symbolizing he had an idea in mind.   
  
"So you want her to suffer..." the cloaked man began, nodding his head towards the young figure. His voice didn't even falter, it remained blunt and monotone. Through he directed his statement to someone else, his menacing stare didn't fail to leave you. The younger male seemed to be slightly intimidated, nervous by Mr. Cloak’s ferocity,  "It’s not like her life matters to anyone, she’s just a useless dove..."   
  
_ You knew exactly what was coming next. _   
  
Too many times have you been in this situation. Too many time have you had to suffer from it, you didn't want to do this anymore. You wanted this to be all done and over with. If death was an option right now, you would have gladly taken it. You didn't care if death would mean the end of everything, this was a fate far worse than death. It would have been a shame to die without knowing anything you've accomplished, or bidding farewell to the ones that matter to you. But in your mind, dying was a far better outcome than having to go through one of these again.   
  
"No please, I'll do anything! DON'T COME NEAR ME!!" you screamed as the dreaded masked man neared you. You violently pulled at your restraints that locked you so painfully to the chair. You didn't care if your whole body throbbed while you cried out in complete selfishness. You didn't want anymore agony added onto your beaten body. There was barely anything left to snap, you swore they'd broken all you bones at least once. Though that might be a bit of an exaggeration, you sure didn't want to experience anymore.   
  
The younger man snickered while he watched your whole body shake in fear from the cloaked man. He seemed relieved that the cloaked figure was directing his anger towards you rather than him. Mr. Cloak inched closed to your seat, you turned your head away from his threatening gaze. You squeezed your eyes shut, too afraid to face the obvious string of event that were to follow. He placed a freezing cold hand on top of your own. Your felt had shriveled at his touch, desperate twisting and turning to try and get away.   
  
"Please stop..." you cried, your voice hoarse and tired from constant usage. The white cloaked man finally broke his stare to glance at the purple haired male, as if he was planning something. He quickly returned much to your dismay, with that quick distraction he was able to get ahold of your pinky. You shrieked in horror as millions of possibilities ran through your mind. And of course, the real thing was always the worst one.   
  
He began twisting your finger in all sorts of unnatural positions. You whimpered in pain while you accepted the fact that your screaming would do no good. In fact, if you were to keep on screaming, not only would you lose your voice, but it would encourage them even more. After a few moments of what seemed to be him toying with you, he finally settled on bending your pinky backwards. Aching amounts of pain was applied to the knuckle of the pinky. You watched in horror as your finger just kept bending further and further backwards. A faint popping sound was heard when he finally dislocated the finger. Your finger was now permanently stuck backwards. The bone from your finger created an unnatural bump underneath the knuckle of the pinky. You bit down on your lip while trying to will away the urge to scream. You dug your teeth into the plump pink lump of flesh until it began to sting. The tiniest bits of blood began to trickle down your chin, the thick red liquid created two little trails coming from your mouth. The two males both went rigid the second your blood escaped your skin. The white cloaked man's movement froze and the purple haired male’s body stilled. It seemed both were intoxicated by the smell of your blood. Your smell was nothing too special, but through the blandness, there were a few kicks of delicious sweetness. It made your blood feel like a drug to the two, they needed to have more and more to get the same "high". No one would have expected such a scent-less smelling human to have such unique and addictive blood.   
Even with that small distraction, the white cloaked man recovered quickest. The other male just continued to stare at your blood completely dumbfound. His fingers seemed to twitch with anticipation from the blood, but his body refused to move. The cloaked man's cold red eyes once again became narrowed. He looked at you with such an expression that made you feel like this was your own fault. Technically you were the one who caused yourself to bleed but it was his pain that made you do so. A small pulse of rage rippled through the man who stood before you. His expression didn't seem to change in the slightest bit to show, but through his action it was clear. The white cloaked man quickly grabbed ahold of your pinky, squeezing your injured finger in his hand. You let out a loud yelp as your already throbbing finger was being bent even more. You could slowly see the skin at your joint begin to tear. You started to yell out in pain while your bone slowly began tear through the small muscles and tendons in your pinky. Your finger was torn clean off by his seemingly limitless strength. He held your finger with his index and thumb, dangling it by the fingertip. An extra strip of skin was ripped off from the top of your palm while your finger had been torn out. Blood went everywhere as your poor appendage was removed. Splatters of crimson littered the floor, which made small pools blood. His eyes glinted with disgust, the man looked like he wanted to burn the finger to ashes. Though he had made it very clear that he had large distaste for your flesh, but it looked like he did somewhat enjoy the way you reacted. The pain was absolutely unbearable, this was the worst form of torture the man's done to you. Your face was twisted with agony as beads of sweat formed against your brow. The inflicted damage made every part of you loose it's composure. It no longer mattered how hoarse or pained your throat was, you felt another scream bubble up. You also began to frantically twist and move around, once again trying to avoid more torture in vain. You knew the damn bastard wasn't going to stop at just one finger, he was sure to do more. But before you could even yell out, he used his other hand to pin down your moving hand. The man let out a low growl and once again, he pulled out another finger. This time, your thumb.   
  
If his aim was to make you scream your lungs out, he sure succeeded. You let out another ear splitting scream. Your breath became very uneven. Pain throbbed through your whole arm, tears spilled out your eyes, and head began to spin. You grounded your teeth together trying to will away the pain. You knew he just wanted you to beg for him to stop, beg him to let you free.   
  
He held the two fingers in his palm, blood poured out of the fingers. The blood filled in all the small creases on his hand, which quickly formed a tiny puddle. Both the finger were tossed lazily in the other male’s direction, a look of crippling desire rippled through his dark eyes. It looked like he wanted to reach out and grab ahold of the severed fingers. But something seemed to be blocking him, a look of pity began to glimmer in his eyes. A completely different look was over taking his originally plastered smirk. The man's red eyes twitched in annoyance, he didn’t forget his earlier intrusion.   
In a flash, a wave of white cloth flew loose in the air. The man had pushed down the other male onto the ground. His hand gripped the male’s head tightly, his knuckles whitened with the force he applied. You cringed when you saw the purple haired male’s face twist in dismay. The cloaked man had completely pinned him face first into the ground, restricting all of his movement. You wanted to look away from the two, but you eyes remained glued. The man's face had become completely emotionless while he continued to hold down the younger male. He thrashed around as he tried to push the man off. It was hard to tell if he was being hurt or not, but you didn’t want to watch to see what would happen.   
  
“Fuck!” he exclaimed as his breath was suddenly pushed out of him from the impact of the shove. He balled his hands into tight fists attempting to get the man off of him, which proved to be very unproductive, “Get the hell off me old man! Why do you care so much?!” The cloaked man continued to stare at him for a few more seconds with a annoyed expression before picking him up by his collar. With the swift movement of his arms he flipped the male over onto his back and began to drag him away. The younger male grabbed at the opportunity to move, his hands immediately shot up to grab at the one holding onto his collar. He continued to thrash around, kicking his legs and shouting insults. You just watched as the two slowly disappear out of the room. The cloaked man slammed the door behind him, a loud bang echoed around the barren cell.   
  
With the two men gone, the room became empty again. Despite the recent events, nothing even changed much. It just like any other interrogation, but this time just a lot more eventful.   
  
Once again a sense of sadness washed over you, a longing to grieve. Tears once again built up in your eyes, gradually making your vision blurry. Why were you crying? Why did you feel pain? This time none it was physical pain, it was emotional than anything else. You felt so bad, you felt so much pity and sadness within yourself. It was almost like how someone feels when there is a loss of a family member, but not that you knew how it felt like. You could no longer feel the pain in your hand, well your nervous system was still working, probably not your brain. Your mind began to float into emptiness once again. It almost felt nice to finally be at peace, even if this peace was not a good sign for your body. Maybe it was because you'd become completely emotionally drained, not that you knew why of course. You just felt so mentally tired, like you've experienced something traumatic. Or maybe it was because of you've lost too much blood?   


* * *

Tatara stormed out of your room, his calm composure had completely vanished, well only momentarily. His pale forehead was creased with wrinkles from his eminent anger, he gritted his teeth slightly under his mask. Sometimes Tatara seriously ticked him off, it must have been the lack of food he’d put into his system. It wasn’t that Aogiri Tree lacked food or he was unable to attain it himself, he was just approaching his time to feed again. Thankfully as a ghoul he didn’t have to eat as constantly as humans did, a sufficient meal every two to three days was enough to sustain him. Ayato had stopped moving around and had now crossed his arms and grumbled under which breath.  
  
An unfortunate Aogiri Tree member turned the corner and began walking down the hallway in which Tatara walked down. Tatara could immediately sense the regret and fear that quickly built up in the ghoul as they saw what was in front of them. It seemed Karma was not happy with him.  
  
"You, go the the girl's room and clean her up, deal with this too." Tatara ordered the lower ranked ghoul, his voice once again blunt and monotonous. He didn't even turn his head towards the ghoul, the lowly members didn't even deserve his respect. He could hear the ghoul let out a strange mixture of a groan and a whimper. Tatara could scent that the ghoul was very frustrated that he was left with such a task, but they most definitely didn't want to displease one of the direct subordinates of the One Eye King. They seemed to sustain this mixed emotion until he was out of Tatara's view, Tatara just sighed at the childish behavior.  
  
He dropped Ayato, he could hear an audible “oof” from him as he suddenly dropped him. Ayato quickly recovered and hopped to his feet. Tatara turned his back and he continued down the long corridor, many room branched off of the long hallway. Ayato shouted something at him but he paid no attention. The lack of maturity Ayato had made him a very difficult person to manage. He was arrogant and impulsive, which Tatara understood as he had once been a boy his age.   
Tatara knew they could have easily punished the youth further, but he no longer felt the need. He couldn’t blame Ayato for feeling bored, these recent few months have been a standstill. Nothing of interest have occurred other than the usual small ghoul feedings. The media didn’t have much to report about ghoul activity. The general public was relieved that there was less to fear about in their everyday activities, but there was definitely suspicions. The CCG had increased their patrols trying to find what could possibly be hiding behind this calmness. Though they would be led to disappointment as the was truly nothing in the making. Tatara and the subordinates had been told to put their plans on hold by the one eye king.  
Tatara grasped ahold of the handle of the door to his residence and swung it open. A faint creaking sound was heard, but not nearly enough to be bothersome. Tatara ran his hand through his snowy colored hair, relieved he was finally alone. He removed his red iron mask from his face and tossed it aside. Tatara immediately shut the door after, not wanting to be bothered any further. He took in two deep breaths as a quick calming factor which always helped him maintain his bluntness. His pulse was still quickened from the alluring scent of the female inspector’s blood. It wasn’t the first time it’s occurred, but he could never get used to it. He didn’t understand why her blood was so intoxicating, she didn’t have any sort of special characteristics. Tatara had grown to not be fazed easily, but that didn't mean he couldn't get ticked off. Usually, only the times when he absolutely can't control his own emotions anymore is when he sees that inspector. It was an unfamiliar feeling he wasn’t use to, someone’s blood has never induced such a feeling in him.  
  
Tatara paused, something wasn't right. His eyebrows seemed to naturally raise and he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck also stand up. Someone was nearby, and it wasn't one of those incompetent foot soldiers. Blood red eyes darted across the empty space trying to pinpoint the source of his unease. From his intakes of air, he had smelled something off. It was most definitely not a human for they had a much sweeter and appetizing smell. Strange thing was, he could identify the smell of mountainous scents, such as pine trees and many different plants. Of course it could have just been some ghoul who had recently went on a trip to Mt. Fuji or something, but something about the smell was foreign. Previously the scent had been a little distant and hard to tell if the ghoul was in the building or not, now it seemed they were moving fast and approaching rapidly as the smell grew more and more potent by the second. Tatara took one more quick sniff before quickly identifying the ghoul was behind him. Assuming the worst, Tatara quickly reacted upon his instincts and jabbed his elbow backwards towards the attacker. Even with Tatara's outstanding speeds, the move was stopped instantaneously before it even in reach of its direction. Tatara froze, there was only a few who could possibly beat his incredible speeds. Good lord he should have known, that scent should have rung a bell for him. His eyes slowly widened as they met the ones of the foreigner. Tatara's crimson eyes locked into a sea of blended blues and greys.  
  
" **Davno ne videlis'*** (давно не виделись), Tatara."

* * *

Arima waited patiently for the new recruit. It was said the young man had shown plenty of promise for the CCG, and he was also being tested with the new prototypes. Through the many documents he had read, the man was doing very well after the surgery had occurred. Now he was to be tested for any issues that may have been miscalculated during the surgery. The male hadn't been forced into the testing nor did he choose to. The young man had gotten caught in an unfortunate car accident and he was fated to rest. But because of the family ties he had in the CCG, they were able to convince the research team to conduct their first test of the new technology on him. This ultimately saved the man's life, though the research hadn't been completely ready. So even with his life saved, he would living with issues for the rest of his life.   
  
It's been nearly half a year, Arima had been held back for six months due to certain orders of the CCG. This had bothered him immensely, he had all the information he needed to rescue you. He could technically have you freed at any moment, but what was done is done. He had expressed his displeasure to his direct subordinates, but he couldn’t just have you magically appear without there being suspicions. Which was why he had orchestrated this whole elaborate plan to set you free. As much as he wished for your well being, having the Aogiri Tree send out that video of you was actually beneficial. Now the CCG had made you their top priority, but not completely. All they essentially did was finally allow Arima to go through with his actions. There had recently been large raid of the Aogiri Tree base in the eleventh ward, many had lost their lives there. From then on, the CCG had refused to put any unnecessary missions and patrols into action.   
But lucky you, the Aogiri Tree had decided to send out a video. They'd demanded a trade with some ghoul that was being held at the CCG ghoul prison. The video quickly became viral and a hot topic among residents of Japan. It had shown how big of a threat Aogiri was and how desperate they were going to be to get what they want. Sure, you were no one important, but you had connections with those who were important. Overall the CCG had not wanted to risk releasing such a dangerous ghoul back out onto the streets for just a wimpy and talentless investigator like you. If it had been your friend though, that tall man with strange colored hair, then maybe the CCG would have considered it. The public did not take this nicely, nor did your mother. Arima recalled her coming to him in tears begging him to go save you. She'd even gotten down onto her knees and touched her forehead to the ground. She just kept begging and begging saying she would do anything to have you returned. Arima had told her to raise her head and he had told her he would see what he could do. It seemed the media had also not been very happy with what the CCG announced. They began twisting the words of the CCG and accused them for being sexist towards women. There had been a number of other accusations, but the sexist aspect had been argued the greatest. People began spreading rumors and bad mouthed the CCG. People were saying it would be better to just move out the country, CCG wouldn't protect them, they won't even protect their own investigators.   
Trying to reassure the public, the CCG had been in a mad rush to try and form a group for your rescue. Arima had volunteered to take charge of the mission, saying he had already planned out the assignment. The CCG had been very grateful towards him, but they were worried when he had proposed that he needed many of the most talented investigators.Having had lost so many soldiers was difficult to recover from, even if it had been nearly seven months ago.   
  
Amon Koutarou, Shinohara Yukinori, and the boy that he had been taking care of had accompanied Arima to meet the new member. Arima was told that the new recruit would be partnered with him as an apprentice. He didn't mind this at all, but it would matter if the newbie couldn't keep up with him. Amon and Shinohara had there own little conversation off to the side and left him and the boy alone. Shinohara was very carefree and joyous as he conversed with Amon. The boy which was known as Suzuya Juuzou, seemed to be utterly bored as he played with his hair. He entangled his strangely stitched hand in his bleach white hair, his lips were a little puckered, showing he wasn't very pleased. Arima had been told it was not a very appealing idea to tick off the odd looking boy, apparently the boy had chewed off one of the guards ears when he been denied entrance to the CCG headquarters.   
  
The door to the room they were all waiting in swung open, a tall figure walked in. A very young male stood in the doorway, he had a very boyish look. His hair was short and slightly on the choppy side. His hair also seemed slightly windswept, but it was probably because of his haircut. The hair was a very dark hue of purple, it reminded Arima of a very particular co-worker. The man's eye were a very soft light shade of grey, it gave him this very approachable look. Though something told Arima that this person was not accurately represented through the way he looked. He had thin eyebrows that fit well with the shape of his eyes. The boy's skin was very tan for being someone who lived in Japan. The norm in Japan had made very white and pale skin the symbol of beauty. His dark skin made him seem like he was filipino. He had very feminine lips that had two simple round piercings right under his bottom lip on the right side. He also had a rather out-of-place mole on his right cheek bone.   
Arima felt like he knew the boy from somewhere, maybe he was from some coffee shop he had previously went to. Of course even as he thought back, nothing seemed to ring a bell. The boy had a pair earbuds in ears, he had the music up so loud that the the whole room could hear it. But even with that loud distraction, his attention didn’t avert from the group. He scanned over the whole group starting with Juuzou and ending of Arima. His soft grey eyes froze the moment he locked eyes with Arima. He began to slowly widen his eyes, he lifted his arm and pulled out a earbud.   
  
"Oh so you're  _ that _ investigator."   
  
Arima's eyebrows rose.

 

**Davno ne videlis'*** \- Long time no see (Russian)


	4. Chapter III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm finally here with an update!! Sorry I take so long ;-; please bear with me. This is the last general chapter though before I finally get into the individualized ones huehuehue >:3 Also feel free to leave comments! I love to hear what you guys have to say.

Amon couldn't believe his ears, was this guy serious? How could he refer to Arima so rudely in that tone of voice? Did he know who he was talking to? There was no way this guy's thinking was straight. Amon just stared wide-eyed at the boy. Maybe this guy had some kind of death wish? If he had been in that man's shoes, he would have probably bolted out of here and never come back again if he valued his life. Amon continued to gawk at the dark purple haired male, the guy didn't even look the slightest bit terrified. His face remained a very cool and had neutral expression, his pink tinted lips didn't even quiver. He just remained deathly still as he just stared at Arima.

  
  
"Well, moving onto the matter at hand, I would like to inform you all that we’re being assigned to an extraction mission," Arima instructed, breaking the icy tension that had formed around everyone. His attention averted from the purple haired male to the rest of the group that had gathered. Amon observed that Arima was very focused on the current assignment. Not that he isn't usually focused, it seemed he was very concerned in a certain way. The way Arima held himself made it almost look like this was personal in someway, "I'm quite sure that you've been listening to the media about-"

  
  
"I don't watch the media," Juuzou commented, interrupting Arima mid-sentence. If Amon had been Arima, he might have just flipped out at the kid. Being embarrassed in front of co-workers like that, then having the nuisance of a kid chime in, Amon probably would have knocked out someone's teeth. Preferably Juuzou or that weird newcomer. Amon's brow twitched as he glared at Juuzou, but the immature kid just brushed it off like nothing. Shinohara just sighed, and ran his hand over his face in slight annoyance. He pulled Juuzou off aside and began whisper something to him while Arima continued.

  
  
"The media has been pressuring the CCG to help get a woman who's being held by the Aogiri Tree. Through social media and a few small protests, we've finally been given executive orders to have this person be brought back safely," Arima continued, his voice oddly slipped into unevenness in the slightest bit every now and then. For a person who didn't know the man personally, they probably wouldn't have noticed his mess up. But of course, Arima had been Amon's role model for the longest time so he virtually knew everything about him. He'd read many case files Arima had resolved and learned as much as he could about him through his fellow investigators. So with this tiny difference, Amon could only assume the worst in this mission. "We are planning a smaller and stealthier approach with this matter, so don't expect too many other investigators or even foot soldiers to be present. Each one of you will be given your own groups and we will search through the complex to find our target."

  
  
A pile of file folders were set atop the table which were all forgotten about by the CCG members in the room. Arima reached out for the files, he scanned through the file labels before passing them out to the right owners. Amon had noticed how Arima had paused and stared at one of the files. And when he began passing them out, the one file Arima had stared at was handed to the man that had made the late arrival. Amon began to have weird feeling in his gut that he knew the male possibly from somewhere. Amon brushed the thought aside and immediately opened his folder and began looking through all the contents.

Inside the file it contained a list of people, a map of the Aogiri tree complex, a blank testament paper, and a pictures of a woman. Amon first examined the list he was given, there was a picture by each name and basic information. Most of the people on his list were mostly junior investigators. Of course not that he could complain much, for he himself had only been recently promoted to a senior investigator.

Amon also just skimmed over the map of the eleventh ward, that place was not something he could forget easily. In fact the whole Aogiri Tree event was not something that could be simply forgotten, even if it were many many months ago. Amon knew exactly what he was going to put down on his testament paper each time. If he were to die on the job he would at least use the belongings to work towards his cause. All his money and belongings, if they're not sold, will be given to the orphans who's been left alone because of those horrific monsters. Amon vowed to help those poor children, for he knew exactly how it felt like to be lonely. To have no one to go to, no one to cry to, and no one to cheer you up. He actually thought he once had a father figure in the past, but that was all fabrication and lies. It probably was the single most dreadful thing he’d ever been through as a child. Amon wanted to do everything he could to help these children. Which is why he was a ghoul investigator right now, he's pretty much given up everything to help these kids.  
  
Oh but the pictures. Amon immediately felt sick to his stomach and his body went rigid. Blood was stained all over her face, it was very easy to tell her jaw was dislocated. It seemed her eye were also half closed when the picture was taken, this could probably be from the lack of rest or blood loss. It was also very visible that the roots of her hair had turned completely white, and the hair near the whitened parts were also beginning to grey. The woman looked absolutely awful.

Even though Amon had been to one too many brutal ghoul killings, none of them angered him as much as this one. The other pictures also showed her very dismantled body. Her arms showed signs of broken bones and her chest looked awkward, indicating possibly broken ribs as well. Massive amounts of dried blood seemed to originate from her head which suggested she may have some severe head injury. Most of the victims at the crime scenes Amon's been to, the victims are usually dead and no longer suffering. So to just imagine what this person was going through was completely brutal and inhuman. Then again, ghouls weren't very human like in the first place, they just wore the skin of one. Amon just wrinkled his nose in a mix of disgust and anger.

For a moment Amon looked over at Juuzou to see how he was reacting to the pictures in his file. But of course, Juuzou's reaction just made Amon's stomach turn even more. The crazy boy was fascinated and almost seemed to be enjoying looking through the pictures. For once he was complete silent as he observed the photos, it was very easy to tell he wasn't feeling any sympathy towards the woman. Before Amon could be blown away by the lack of humanity in Juuzou, Arima spoke again.

  
  
"Our victim here has been through large amount of torture, so be aware she will most likely be in critical conditions. If you find her, you must evacuate the facility immediately so she may be given medical attention. Therefore that is why you are given teams that will go with you during this mission." Arima informed, as he opened his own file with his assigned team. His dark eyes glazed over everyone before locking onto the newcomer that had interrupted ever so kindly earlier. The man just gave Arima a charming smile and looked back at his own papers. Arima gave out the slightest sigh, "I'm sure you've noticed we have a new investigator here. He’s here as a prototype for a new break in ghoul understanding. An anonymous doctor claims to have succeeded in harnessing a ghoul's power without having the need of consuming human flesh."

  
  
Arima nodded towards the purple haired male. He returned the nod back towards Arima and walked briskly to the center of the room, almost as if he was accustomed to a lot of attention. Amon stared at him for a moment, he started to feel like he may know this person from somewhere too. "Hello everyone, I'm very pleased to meet you all." the tanned man paused for moment and took in a deep breath. He seemed to close his eyes momentarily, almost as if he'd regret what he was about to say, "Well let's try this again shall we? It's nice to meet you, I'm Yuki Tatsuya."

* * *

You didn't dare move. Something small was crawling along your back, and it definitely had more legs than four. It was strangely furry and it was not the kind of furry that felt very soft and comforting. A cold sweat began to break along your neck. You could feel the prickly hairs brush against your soft skin. Every hair on your body rose to its peak. You let out a quiet whimper as each little movement of the hairy creature sent a shiver down your spine. The thing kept crawling higher and higher up your backside. Your breath hitched in your throat as the thing came closer and closer to your face.

  
  
“I not know you keep pet,” a low voice said with a distinct accent. It was thick and harsh, probably Germanic or Russian. His voice made you shiver, completely forgetting about the thing on your back. He stepped closer to you and reached his hand towards you. You instinctively flinch and squeeze your eyes shut. You waited for him to hit you but nothing happened. Instead he reached pasted you and grabbed whatever was on your back. The creature’s prickly sensation finally left your sensitive skin and relief washed over you. Your moment of peace didn’t last long before you felt the foreign man’s face inch closer to you.

  
  
You turned away, trying to make distance between yourself and the man. Regardless, he took in a deep breath. You peaked your eyes open and took a glance at him, you could instantly tell he was different from everyone else. Fear immediately gripped you. He was clearly some sort of foreigner, European to be exact. He openly had his face shown, something you weren’t used to during your seemingly eternity you spent here. For once it felt nice to see something human other than some blank white mask. He had a high nose bridge and strong defined features. Along his jaw there was the slightest bit of stubble and his thin lips complemented his strong features. Under different circumstances you might of actually found this guy quite attractive. But right now, your fear only grew out of the possibility of what this new addition might do to you.

Surprisingly, the thing that had been crawling on your back vanished once the two men appeared. Though it wasn’t to your relief as you saw a massive tarantula crawling from you to the foreigner. You felt goosebumps rising on your skin as the idea of a giant spider crawling on you was not appealing.

 

“No, she’s not my pet. Yakov, why are you here,” someone demanded behind him in a stern voice. You recognized the voice very quickly as the white cloaked man that visited you often. You stiffened and looked away from the foreigner.

 

“She has strange smell,” the man didn’t bother to answer, he just continued to observe you. He leaned in even closer, near the crook of your neck. His nose barely grazed above your skin. You uncomfortably shifted in your seat trying to put any sort of distance between you two. He finally backed off after a few more sniffs, but he still eyed you with a certain look as predator to prey, “Not pet, then snack?”

 

“No. I am not connected to her,” the pale skinned male began stepping closer to the foreigner. He grabbed onto his arm and spoke through gritted teeth, “Stop avoiding my question.”

 

The blonde haired male let out a loud laugh. It was low and seemed to shake the room. The sharp pitch pierced through the usually silent room, it shook you to the core. You weren’t sure whether it was because it scared you, or because you haven’t ever heard a laugh for a long long time. Nonetheless you were surprised and simply eyed the strange man. You were rather fathomed that he could even laugh in a place like this. You swore there wasn’t a single place in this building where there wasn’t some sort of blood stain on the wall.

He turned to grip the albino male in return with a matching vice grip. He gave him a close eyed smile, he even had dimples. You were certain that any average person would have found him deathly attractive. And in all honesty it did made your heart skip in the slightest bit, but it quickly disappeared given the situation you were in.

 

He flashed his sharp canines at the male, you swore they gleamed slightly in the dim light. The white haired male held his ground despite the sudden motion, it was like he was used to it. The foreigner curtly began to speak, “Still so stiff. Why not soften up?” He released his grip on the white cloak and roughly patted him on the shoulder. The loud thump on his palm colliding into his shoulder made you flinch. The strength the man seem to put into the shoulder pat was far beyond what was necessary. Faint cracks and slight jerks confirmed your suspicions. Your stomach twisted as you watched.

 

The cloaked male didn’t seem to be fazed in the slightest. He just continued to stare at the foreigner. The blonde continued to smile, his ever so mocking dimples present on his face. The two of them just held a silent stand off between their gazes. You awkwardly sat observing their wordless battle.

Another burst of laughter broke the silence in the room. Finally a sound that wasn’t ill in any intention, one could even call it pleasant or warming. The foreigner clasped his hand on the other man and wrapped his arm around his shoulder. The rigid features of the cloaked man seemed to even soften in the slightest bit.

As the metal door slammed behind them, you felt terribly alone. Your chronic headache was creeping into your attention. You’d completely forgotten during your terrifying encounter with the strange person. From his behavior, you could deduce that he was a ghoul. Ghouls had acute senses, especially smell. It’d become a little pastime for you to see how quickly you could tell if someone was a ghoul.

You relaxed in your restrains. You were washed over with relief that the monster didn’t have any suffering planned for you. Maybe today wasn’t going to too bad.

* * *

You were gently shaken awake and groggily opened your eyes. You were met with a head full of snow white hair. Panic quickly ensued over you, was the monster back to hurt you? Though you quickly realized that the person in front of you wasn’t the person you thought they were. He was the silent grey eyed one who never interacted with you much. His features were softer and more youthful, he was probably even younger than you.

To find him working at your restrains was very unexpected. He released your sore wrists from the shackles that bound you to the chair. Your jaw was dropped as you just watched him work away at chairs. He even took extra effort to carefully untangle the coiled iron and not harm you. His cold calloused hands brushed gently over your sensitive raw skin. A look of sadness was struck in his soft grey eyes. His gentle touches were almost affectionate, making you wonder if you had know him before this mess happened. He sighed and looked down at your wrists where permanent scars would form from the the cuffs’ harsh hold.

 

“I’m sorry you’ve had to suffer. No one deserves this, no matter the person,” he said in a feathery soft voice. You wanted to ask why he was doing this, but you were too shocked to say anything. In your silence he continued, “But they’re coming now, you’re going home.”

 

Hearing his words made you swell with joy. Tears immediately began to fall from your tired eyes. You sobbed loudly, unable to control the happiness and relief that washed over you. A slight smile creeped over his lips as he shushed you. His hands were rough as they pressed against your checks and whipped you tears away. You didn’t mind them though, it felt good to be touched in a humanly way.

 

“Don’t be too loud now. They’ll be here any moment,” he continued. His touch was comforting, it almost lulled you back to sleep.

 

You both turned your head to the light tapping sound of footsteps. He abruptly stood up, your eyes followed him as he made his way underneath the large vents in your room. Your expression twisted as you watched red colored appendages emerge from his lower back. You knew that only ghouls had appendages like that, you felt a sickening feeling develop in your stomach. Yet you were still incredibly grateful for him, even if he was a ghoul. His small comfort meant the world to you. After suffering so much, his small gesture went a long way.

He hoisted himself up into the vents, making effort to make as little noise as possible. He gracefully maneuvered himself inside, and slowly crawled away. It wasn’t long after the ghoul had left when you heard the metal door creak open.

_Sweet freedom. Oh sweet sweet freedom._

* * *

Amon signaled for his men to file into the room. Much to his surprise, there was barely any ghouls in the building to stop their advance. His team went through to the build with ease and made it to your room in only a few minutes. It was almost eerily silent in the room you were confined in. There were only quiet stifled sobs as they all stepped inside. The medical officer who had accompanied them immediately rushed to your side. The sight of dried blood littered all over your body made Amon’s stomach turn.

The medic examined your body as you sat limply in the chair, unable to get up yourself. He was there in case they found you in critical condition and needed medical help right away. It puzzled Amon when your restraints were all undone, but right now his top priority was to get you your medical assistance. The medic conducted a brief assessment over your injuries.

 

“Sir, she has experienced extensive head trauma and a concussion as a result. There also seems to be several broken bones,” he backed away from you to turn to Amon, “I’d advise having her extracted via stretcher, but that’s not an option. Please handle her with care.”

 

Amon gave a quick nod in understanding toward the medical officer. He then slowly approached you, gauging what would be the best way to pick you up. He decided that lifting you up with one of his arms below your knees and other around your shoulders. He made sure to support your neck and head when he lifted you up. You felt like a feather in his arms, barely weighing anything. It was clear you were malnourished and it made bile rise up in Amon throat. _Those monsters_. He bit down hard on his lip to hold back the anger that was building up inside him. His lip throbbed when the warm trickle of blood dropped from his bottom lip. Though he paid no attention since he knew the pain you’d been through was nothing compared to his.

Amon pressed your feeble body tightly against his body, hoping to calm your shivering form. He gestured with his head to his team to evacuate from the building. Amon looked down at you, your eyes were half way open, “Stay with me now miss, we’re gonna get you out of here,” he said to you. You let out a gentle hum and leaned into his chest. Your actions almost made him trip over his own feet. While he may have initiated the closeness between you two, he hadn’t expected you to return the action.

Once again the eerie silence in the building made Amon incredibly suspicious, but his team managed to escape the Aogiri Tree base with no issues. He immediately brought you over to the waiting ambulance nearby. He could see Arima and his team guarding the vehicle in case ghouls would attack the waiting ambulance. He carried you up to the awaiting paramedics who were already had a stretcher out ready for you.

Amon slid your limp body onto the stretcher. The paramedics immediately rushed to attend to your beaten body. They pushed you inside and quickly sped you away to the nearest hospital for treatment. Amon watched the ambulance disappear around the corner. Arima radioed to the other teams that the mission was completed and to leave the complex immediately. Amon was relieved that they had managed to get you out of the hell hole, but everything went way too smoothly. _Way_ too smoothly.

* * *

 

**A year later...**

 

You spent three months in a coma right after you’d been rescued. You also went through extensive surgeries in attempts to fix your shattered bones, specifically in your arm and feet. The doctors used countless screws and rods to fix their bone structures. They managed keep you from suffering constant nervous pain, but they couldn’t keep you from having an obvious limp in your left side. Your left ankle had also been broken which left you with the limp. Though through extensive physical therapy you were able to reduce the limp to little more than a slight wobble when walk with your left. You were also left with extensive scarring on your feet and arm. They constantly throbbed, reminding you about your trauma. Physical therapy also helped regain the muscle mass you had lost from spending so much time sitting down.

Even with your years of physical therapy, you could never get used to the loss of two fingers on your left hand. Life wasn’t the same without a proper hand. It’s surprising how many activities require two functioning hands. Plus nothing prepares you for all the wandering eyes and staring when you were in public. You felt so uncomfortable with all the looks you’d get in public. The increased whispering voices whenever you were around also irked you.

Your recovery from your case of amnesia was slow, much slower than any of your other injuries. Friends and family made effort to visit you and try to remind you of the past. There was no definitive cure other than to expose you to possible stimulus from your past. The good thing was that you only lost your memories and not your ability to perform tasks. This played to your favor as the CCG changed your job to being a receptionist/office worker at the CCG headquarters, rather than leave you jobless. Your mother visited you constantly and even moved in with you at your apartment. Your neighbor, whom you apparently were well acquainted with, also helped you a lot with integrating back into normal civilian life. His name was Arima Kishou and he even worked in the same job force than you. You felt like you’d know him more closely than friendly neighbors, but he insisted he wasn’t.

It was hard adjusting into the social aspect of life with your amnesia. You acted different from how you previously did, and it drove some people away. You would always hear some of your “friends” whisper about how weird you were. They’d comment about how you constantly spaced out and skittish, the slightest movements would cause you to jump or start panicking. While some people cut ties with you, your co-workers were extremely friendly. Many came over to your desk to check if you were alright or brought you something to drink, most notably a man named Amon Koutarou. You learned that he was the one who got you out of the building the night of your evacuation. He was also in a few of your classes when you were at the investigator academy, not that you could remember him though.

Even with the kindness you were shown, you couldn’t help but feel like everyone simply pitied you. Nothing felt genuine, people just seemed to be nice to you because they felt bad for you. It gave you a persistent negative mind set that was slowly pulling you down into a dark hole. You couldn’t really talk about it much given that expressing these kind of feelings was considered taboo in Japan.

Despite how much your amnesia messed up your life, it began your driving factor to continue getting up in the morning. You held an intense desire to renew your memories. Every weekend you’d wander around outside and go to places you felt like you vaguely recognized. Though you made sure to not venture too far out from public eye and never stayed out after dark.

You were in the twentieth ward today, seeking out whatever looked remotely familiar. You walked down the bustling streets while scanning through the many cafés and shops. One particular building caught your eye as you walked, a small coffee shop that had only a few customers flowing in and out. You glanced at the café’s sign. It read “Anteiku”. You felt suddenly woozy as you stood in front of the doors. Past sensations and memories erupted through your mind. The rich smell of the coffee ground was refreshing and relaxed your usually tenses muscles. It almost made you feel safe, the nagging in the back of your head disappeared.

Without thinking you stepped inside the small shop. You felt only a few eyes turn to your direction, but no judgemental air was sent your way. For once you felt accepted, no one here seemed to care how you looked. You were safe in your scarred skin, reserved from and any sideways glances from anyone.

An elderly gentleman sent a friendly smile in your direction behind the counter. You returned the greeting with a smile of own, one that didn’t feel forced. This place seemed to welcome you, no one minded what you looked like. You sat down at a vacant table and got yourself settled. You weren’t really sure what was compelling you to stay here, usually you’d just look around some place that caught your interest. Nonetheless you remained where you were and soon one of the waitresses approached you.

The woman had blueish purple hair accompanied with large marble eyes. Her hair was short and promptly cropped over her left eye. She had a young slim figure complement with a small face. She looked like she was barely out of her teens.

 

You were rather shocked by her sudden appearance and jumped back slightly. She smiled at you and asked, “What can I get you today?” Her voice was very feminine but with a touch of harshness to it, “Or would you like more time to look over our menu?” She gestured to the pamphlet on your table. You hadn’t noticed the menu when you’d sat down. Your checks tinted by your obliviousness. Your tongue tied and you simply gaped at her.

 

She giggled at your flustered behavior and picked up the menu herself. She scanned over it before she stopped to point at a particular drink on the menu, “This is one our favorites, I’d highly recommend it,” she said.

 

“Y-yes I’ll have that please,” you quickly replied, trying to recover yourself from your embarrassment. You cursed at yourself for having such horrible social skills. You wondered if pre-amnesia you would have been able to smoothly recover in this situation.

 

“Alright, is there anything else I can get for you?” she said as she jotted down your order. She gave you another warm smile that dulled the edge of your nerves.

 

“No thank you, that should be enough,” you said while straightening yourself up. You felt bad for the waitress having to deal with your mess. Part of you felt like she was being genuine, but the other felt like she was just putting on her best customer service face. The young woman worked in food service after all.

 

As she stepped away you surveyed the room. You looked for any faces that you thought were remotely familiar. You must have come here often in the past if you were so drawn to this place. Perhaps you befriended one of the regulars while coming to this café. You continued to look around but to no avail. Nothing triggered any memories and you were beginning to feel discouraged. You already ordered whatever the waitress had recommended, it would be rude to just leave.

Not long later the waitress return with a cup of coffee. The rich aroma of the coffee was mouth watering. You eagerly eyed hot drink. You’ve never been this excited about a beverage, well at least with all the memories you had right now.

 

“Enjoy,” she said as she set it down on the table in front of you. You gave her a brief thanks and turned your full attention to the drink. Maybe you just came here for the coffee before your injuries? It made most sense because the coffee here was absolutely perfect. One sip and all the stress just disappeared from your body.

 

You mindlessly scanned through the other customers again. You weren’t actively seeking out any face you possibly recognized, but your attention was caught onto someone. Just looking at him made your head ache, yet no memories came flooding back. He made a cold sweat break out on your neck, you’ve never felt so unnerved after you’d left the hospital. Your chest felt tight and it became harder to breath. You clearly knew this person, but the question was how.


	5. Tatara I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh! Two updates in the same month! Who is this person?? Anyways, I've decided to write shorter chapters for more frequent updates. But Tatara is going to be your first love interest chapter WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! (fuck I love that character) I'll be posting these individualized chapter in a weird way. Since I don't want people who are more interested in other character routes to be stuck waiting forever for me to get done with the one that I'm currently working on, I'm gonna write all the first chapters for every character I plan to write a route for, then all the second chapters etc, etc. So people don't have to wait forever for their one character, but this also means you have to wait for forever for the next chapter of the character you like to finally update. Welp, we can't have the best of both worlds :') Thanks again for sticking with me though! Enjoy!

Tatara scowled when he saw you enter Anteiku. Of all places you could have gone, you had to enter the one place he was not welcome. Being forced to tail and watch over you was already bad enough, but of course you were going to make it harder for him. He probably deserved it though. The One Eyed King was not particularly pleased with the stunt they pulled. Apparently you had been in a much closer relationship with the King than Tatara and the subordinates anticipated.

The King originally planned to punish all three of the subordinates, Eto, Noro, and himself; but Tatara stood up to take all the blame. He was the one who was most involved with your injuries, so it was only reasonable that he was the one punished. The punishment was simple enough: make sure that you were protected from harm’s way. It bewildered Tatara that all the King wanted was for him to basically guard you. He had thought it would be some sort of laborious task or bazaar physical mutilation. Not that any of those would really affect him much as ghoul bodies healed quickly and were incredibly strong. Maybe this was why the King had assigned him this punishment; the task wasn’t something he could easily breeze over.

Tatara adjusted his flat cap again to cover more of his distinct pale hair. Colored contacts did the trick in hiding his dark red eyes. He also didn’t have his signature red metal mask. Practically no one knew what his real face looked like, so there wouldn’t be an issue. He almost had difficulty recognizing himself with his hair tucked away and eye color changed. A few stray strands poked out from the sides which annoyed him to no end. _Maybe shorter hair would be more convenient_ , he thought as he tucked the strands behind his ear.

He wore a long brown trench coat and dark blue jeans. His hands were covered by a pair of black leather gloves. Tatara wore glove solely because of his albinism, as his skin burned easily under the sun. Though he technically never actually “burns”, but his skin would faze from bright pink to pale constantly because he healed so quickly. Plus if the burn was bad enough flakes of skin would just peel off and make it look even weirder.

When Tatara saw you sit down and speak with Touka, he could tell you were ordering something. He exhaled a stiff sigh and began to enter the café himself. The ghouls flicked their eyes at his entrance, noting the smell of a ghoul. He felt the atmosphere tense with his presence. The employees seemed to be on edge as sat himself down at a table near you. They probably feared that this was some attack similar to the one where Aogiri kidnapped Kaneki. Tatara scoffed at the idea. No one here was any use to him, and the idea of planning an attack in broad daylight with hundreds of spectators was idiotic. Only an attention seeker would pull off such a stunt. Tatara preferred anonymity and causing as little stir to public notice unless necessary.

He folded his hands together and leaned back in his seat. To not seem completely out of place, he ordered a cup of black coffee. Sitting around in café without ordering anything would be considered suspicious and people might grow weary. Not that he was complaining, the coffee Anteiku brewed was exceptionally good. It was one of the better blends he’s tasted.

Tatara took a moment to look over in your direction, you face was twisted with an indescribable expression. He couldn’t tell if it was anger, fear, or excitement. You simply stared down at your hands tightly gripping your cup. As long as you weren’t getting yourself killed it wasn’t in his concern what you were doing. He turned his attention back to the windows and stared outside. He could hear your cup clattering lightly against the saucer. Tatara didn’t need heightened senses to tell you were panicking. He was certain everyone the café could hear the clinking of the dish ware.

A bystander in the coffee shop seemed to be concerned by your behavior and approached you. Her touch must have surprised you as you whipped your head around to face her. Your eyes momentarily lingered in his direction as you turned.

 

“Are you alright miss?” she asked, her brow was scrunched as she looked at you. He picked up on the woman’s scent, he smelled the familiarity in it. It seemed that this woman was some lower ranking ghoul, she was probably trying to pick up an easy meal. She would convince you she meant no harm and lead you to an alley before killing you. Tatara frowned at the thought of actually having to do something. He preferred throughout this whole punishment ordeal he wouldn’t have to lift a finger to help you. You life meant nothing to him anyways.

 

He watched as you quickly turned back to staring down at your drink before you answered, “I’m okay, just got the shivers.” You waved her off dismissively, but it was clear as day you were lying. Tatara could pick up on your behavioral cues, something he’d grown accustomed to by spending so much time with you.

 

“Are you sure-” the woman pressed again only to be interrupted with a crash. You had unintentionally lifted up your cup of coffee with your crippled left hand. It seemed you  weren’t used to the loss of fingers yet. The hot coffee slipped over the edge of the table into your lap, you hissed out in pain.

 

The Anteiku staff rushed over help clean up the mess, wiping off the coffee from the floor. Unfortunately for you, the cup somehow managed to break. Even though it looked like it just tipped over from your inability to hold it stably, it hit the table and broke. The potent scent of your blood’s smell filled the café. It felt like someone had punched Tatara in the face. It was a mystery why your usual scent was so bland and uninteresting. It was highly probable that it was some sort of genetic mutation that caused your body you release less odor bearing substances. Tatara found it intriguing nonetheless. Maybe humans were finally adapting.

The ghouls in the coffee shop all froze in the tracks unanimously. Tatara grimaced to see that the woman ’s eye twitch involuntarily from the sudden exposure to blood. To his relief you didn’t catch on to what was going on. He knew he needed to intervene now. If he didn’t, things could get chaotic.

Tatara shot up in his seat and made a beeline towards you. The lesser ghouls instinctively backed off from his path, not wanting to get in his way. The Anteiku staff seemed to be slightly unhinged by the smell being so strong, but this wasn’t the first time someone’s cut themselves in the café. The staff quickly returned to their normal activities as if they didn’t notice anything. Luckily for him, the female ghoul who had been talking to you was too shocked by the scent to react yet. He peeled off his coat and wrapped it around your shoulders. He could see that you were very taken back but obliged to whatever he was doing anyway.

 

“I’ve got it miss. My house is close to the hospital so I can just drop her off along the way,” he said while he stepped between you and woman, shielding your small frame behind him. He knew nothing could muffle the scent of blood, but he could at least scare off the ghoul with his presence.

 

Thankfully the woman wasn’t in a starving state in which she probably would have mauled your right there and then. Tatara knew he would have probably stopped her before she could, though the humans around would be alarmed and his cover would be blown. The woman remained in shock for a few more second before she finally spoke up,

 

“O-oh okay, I’ll leave you to it then.” She gave the two of you a brief bow, “Have a good afternoon.” The woman quickly scurried off without another word, almost tripping over her own feet. She was clearly terrified of his sudden intervention.

 

The smallest smile curled in the corner of Tatara’s lips. Seeing people in such a panic was always so delicious. It was probably one of the only reasons why he didn’t end up killing you while you were held in the eleventh ward. Having a living subject was always more entertaining to mess around with. Dead people don’t have any reactions.

 

* * *

 

You stared at the broad backside of a tall stranger. His coat was especially warm wrapped around you, it felt like a welcoming little fireplace. It had a slight musky aroma as if the owner had recent walked through a light rain shower. The inside liner was silky smooth. You had to fight the urge to snuggle into it.

You noticed the owner wore one of those European flat caps despite his features being distinctly Asian. His nose was a little more pronounced than most Japanese, but his eyes were narrow and monolid. He had high cheekbones and unnaturally pale skin, it made him look almost exotic. You felt like you knew this person, he was the one you felt so familiar with when you sat in the coffee shop. But with such unique features as his, you memories should surely have been jogged by now. There was no way someone as striking his him could easily be forgotten. Though it was possible you were just simply attracted to him.

 

“You’ll need new clothes,” he commented when he turned back to look at you. You simply looked up at him with wide eyes. In all honestly you didn’t quite know what to do in this situation, everything was just happening so fast. He rubbed his hand against his chin, obviously contemplating what to do. He then spoke again, “I have extra clothing in my apartment.”

 

“O-okay,” you stuttered not really sure what to say. He didn’t seem to have ill intentions, but was it safe for you to just walk away with a stranger? No one around you looked all too concerned with his actions. If this was suspicious someone would have already stood up right? All too caught up in the moment, you followed his lead up the coffee shop. His grip on your wrist was tight, it made wince slightly. The scars on your wrist were probably visible, he must be grossed out by them. To your relief he made no comment on them and continued to lead you away.

 

You arrived not too long after at his supposed apartment. It was within view of the busy evening foot traffic down the street, it gave you reassurance that he wouldn’t try anything. Though now you were starting to recover from your initial shock, you started to feel uncomfortable. He really didn’t need to go out of his way to help you like this. You were began to feel suspicious out his actions. Yet he seemed so familiar you wanted to trust him, he conjured a feeling in your gut you couldn’t describe.

You stepped inside close behind him. No words were exchanged between the two of you, but none where necessary when he held the door open for you. You weren’t sure why you followed him into his apartment without hesitation. It was almost like a force of habit, you had to have known him before right? This had to be why you were so familiar.

The apartment was rather barren, only containing the necessities. No decor, no unnecessary furniture. All there was inside was a large king sized bed and table with two chairs. He also had a simple dresser. A thin layer of dust coated over everything, making the room almost have a deserted feeling. Had anyone even lived here in the recent month? You were beginning to feel that you’d been led into an unpleasant situation. You wanted to say something, but the air had grown so still you didn’t want to disturb it. Plus, he didn’t exactly look like he was looking for a conversation. You simply waited patiently as he rummaged through his dusty dresser.

 

“Here,” he said while he tossed some clothing towards you. You stumbled slightly as you caught them, still incredibly nervous and weary of the whole situation. Given the man has actually gave you a change of clothes when he said he was gave you some relief. Maybe you were just over thinking this whole thing. He paused to look at you unfold the pants he’d thrown to you, seeming to measure with his eyes if it would fit you or not. After he’d stared at you for a moment, he looked content with his choice, “The bathroom is over there,” he gestured to the corner of the room with his hand, “You can get changed in there.”

 

You nodded and went to the bathroom as instructed. You closed the door behind you and locked it. The man didn’t seem like the type of person to do something crude, but you just wanted to make sure. You slowly slipped off your skirt; only to cringe at the red irritated skin of your thighs that had been seared by the hot coffee. Your lips quivered as the pain from the burn began to settle in. Tears bubbled up in the corners of your eyes as your adrenaline died down once you were finally alone in the bathroom. You sniffled wiping the tears from your eyes, the prickling pain throbbing over your legs.

There was some slightly shuffling outside, and you forced yourself to quicken your pace. _Come on now, you’re not in your own house. Just hurry up and get out of this guy’s hair._ The small cut on your hand was momentarily forgotten through the commotion of recent events. You accidentally smeared a bit of dark red liquid onto your already ruined skirt as you pulled it completely off from your legs. You cursed quietly under you breath. But it wasn’t like mattered much anyways, the skirt was already ruined. You slipped on the sweatpants the man gave you and rushed out of the bathroom. This time you made sure not to get your blood all over the pants.

 

The man sat outside on one of the chairs at the small dining table in the kitchen. He was scrolling through his phone when you stepped out, his head whipped up to look at you. You felt compelled in the moment to say something to him, “U-um thank you mister,” you said, avoiding eye contact with the man. You fiddled with the cloth of your skirt as you waited for a response. You honestly didn’t know why you were so keen on waiting for him to say something to you. He was a complete stranger and yet you kept waiting for him to tell you what to do. This should be huge red flags, but here you were, just standing there in front of him.

 

His eyes scanned over you and paused when he noticed the cut on your hand. In the mess at the coffee shop, you didn’t get it properly treated. He grumbled something under his breath you couldn’t quite catch and abruptly stood up. This motion made you flinch, but you remained still as he rummaged through the drawers in the kitchen. His movements slowed and you assumed he found what he had been looking for. He pulled out a small first aid kit, barely the size of his hand. He approached you once again with two small bandages in his hand.

 

“Give me your hand,” he ordered with his own hand outstretched towards you. You hesitantly placed your injured hand in his as you complied. He removed the wrapping of the band-aids and briefly stared at them, almost unsure on how they were supposed to work. Though his pause didn’t last long before he applied the bandages on top of you wound. The application was rather sloppy, but it would do the trick. He stepped back to observe his work and gave a stiff nod that he was pleased. He then stared down to look directly into your eyes, “Now go home.”

 

You were rather dumbfounded in this situation and weren’t sure what to do. Though you did know that you needed to thank this person for their kindness. “How can I thank you?” you asked, abruptly cutting in his ushering to get out of the door. He expressions twitched, you weren’t able to read his emotion behind brief change. Though you could tell there was a slight annoyance in it.

 

“No need, just go home before it gets dark,” he said as he continued to lead you to the door. You glanced outside to notice the sun was approaching the horizon. He was right, you probably needed to return to the safety of your apartment soon before the ghouls started lurking about. Yet you couldn’t ignore the strange pull you had felt towards him, a certain determination drove you to find out more about this man. He clearly knew you in some way previously.

 

“Can I least get your name?” you asked as the two of you reached his apartment door. You turned around to face him with a pleading look in your eyes. He didn’t look very pleased as his brow creased slightly, but he did answer your question.

 

“My name is Lú,” he replied with a sigh. He leaned against the doorframe as he looked down at you. It finally dawned upon you how much he towered over you, he was at least 185 cm. “Go home before it gets dark.” he promptly reminded you again before he gave you a gentle push out the door. There was surprising amount of force behind his push and you stumbled out the door. He quickly shut the door behind you, closing off any more opportunities to ask anymore questions.

 

You knew this behavior would be strange if you didn’t know him, but the way he treated you with a certain familiarity made you believe otherwise. Clearly you knew the person in the past. A childish rush of determination rushed through you; you were going to find out more about this Lú if it was the last thing you did. He could maybe even answer some questions you had about your past. Things were finally looking up for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think! Until the next chapter~ (Arima is next :3)


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